Backup plates on PDA

On Mon, 6 Dec 2004 12:48:15 -0600, "Stan Prevost"
wrote:

I would pay for DVD updates rather than very large downloads. Also, I don't
like having to generate backups for individual trips, I would rather have
the whole thing available, or at least a large area. For an alternate
airport when conditions are really poor, I often choose one that is more
than 100 nm away, a Class B or C, where I can find good approaches with good
approach lighting and food, transportation, and lodging, and hopefully out
of the weather system that is causing the problem at my primary destination.
Generating a per-trip backup pack for that size corridor about my route
would be a lot of downloading.

Stan,

The downloads are free once you have the software.

And, when the updates come along, all that gets downloaded are the charts
that have changed.

I have the entire US on my tablet, and with broadband it just takes a few
minutes to do the updates -- not any longer than putting my JeppView CD
onto my computer.

So there's no problem with calling up a distant alternate "on the fly".


--ron

I recently upgraded to AnywhereXM and have used it extensively over the past
couple of months. In short I can't imagine how I managed to fly around in
IMC for so long without it. Having the ability to see those nexrad images
displayed over my route of flight has enabled me to make some real tactical
decisions about my flight and routings that were all but impossible to make
before. Being given a change in routing and knowing that the new routing was
going to put you into an area of weather and negotiating a different routing
as a result has been wonderful. Overall the system has been reliable and
generally the weather is where it is depicted. There is a delay in the
images but that is not usually an issue in my spamcan. The metar and taf
data can be over an hour old and the visual display of clouds and visibility
can give an inaccurate picture of the weather ahead. All in all it's been a
great investment, right up there with my autopilot. I won't leave home
without it.

--
Rich Badaracco
Director Angel Flight North Carolina
N1943T

"Dan Luke" wrote in message
...

"Stan Prevost" wrote:
We just upgraded our AnyWhereMap system to AnyWhereWx (XM Wx) with a
new iPAQ,

How do you like that setup, Stan?

"Stan Prevost" wrote:
We just upgraded our AnyWhereMap system to AnyWhereWx (XM Wx) with a
new
iPAQ,

How do you like that setup, Stan?


I don't know yet, Dan. I'll try to give a PIREP when I get back from the
trip.

Please do!

"Ron Rosenfeld" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 6 Dec 2004 12:48:15 -0600, "Stan Prevost"
wrote:

I would pay for DVD updates rather than very large downloads. Also, I
don't
like having to generate backups for individual trips, I would rather have
the whole thing available, or at least a large area. For an alternate
airport when conditions are really poor, I often choose one that is more
than 100 nm away, a Class B or C, where I can find good approaches with
good
approach lighting and food, transportation, and lodging, and hopefully out
of the weather system that is causing the problem at my primary
destination.
Generating a per-trip backup pack for that size corridor about my route
would be a lot of downloading.

Stan,

The downloads are free once you have the software.

And, when the updates come along, all that gets downloaded are the charts
that have changed.


:-) I didn't mean that I would rather pay for DVD updates than to pay for
very large downloads, I meant that I would buy DVD updates rather than
perform large free downloads. :-)

I missed on their website that the update download was selective to changes.
Nice feature. I may have more questions on this product later. For now, I
am trying one cycle of the Sporty's product, as it only costs $10 and I am
still evaluating the usability of the PDA for occasional use with approach
charts.

Ron, having used the Seattle Avionics product, what do you make of their
claim of 5X download speed due to some kind of magic preprocessing of the
charts? As I said earlier, the one they put up as an example on their
website is essentially the same size as the NACO original.

"Rich Badaracco" wrote:
I recently upgraded to AnywhereXM and have used it extensively over the
past
couple of months. In short I can't imagine how I managed to fly around in
IMC for so long without it.

You're preaching to the choir, Rich. I've had XM WxWorx for over a year and
I love it. I've not run across anyone who has it who is less than thrilled
with the performance of it.

I see you're with Angel Flight. Since I've had XM WxWorx I've definitely
taken more AF missions than I would have without it. I highly recommend it
to all AF pilots.

My question had more to do with what hardware Stan's running his on. I'm
using a Sony notebook pc, which has a superb display but is awkward to use in
the airplane. The PDA's I've seen look too small and have resolution too
poor to tempt me. What are you using?

--
Dan
C-172RG at BFM
Angel Flight SE

On Tue, 7 Dec 2004 09:32:47 -0600, "Dan Luke" wrote:

My question had more to do with what hardware Stan's running his on. I'm
using a Sony notebook pc, which has a superb display but is awkward to use in
the airplane. The PDA's I've seen look too small and have resolution too
poor to tempt me. What are you using


I assume you are talking weather functions here.

I have used AnywhereMap on an Ipaq 5450 and the graphics/resolution is
great. for basic navigation.

Especially with the latest version that allows the user to set up
different views. You can define 5 different views that have unique
characteristics, so that a view you might use for pilotage is
completely different from one you might use for instrument approaches,
for example.

On Tue, 7 Dec 2004 08:50:07 -0600, "Stan Prevost"
wrote:

Ron, having used the Seattle Avionics product, what do you make of their
claim of 5X download speed due to some kind of magic preprocessing of the
charts? As I said earlier, the one they put up as an example on their
website is essentially the same size as the NACO original.

Stan,

I have not compared the actual download so far as the file size or speed
during download is concerned. I opt to download all of my plates from the
FAA web site as I believe I see higher resolution. This may not be so
important in the flat areas, but seemed to be more noticeable in
mountainous areas (where I would need the increased resolution more).

So I put up with a long download time initially, but now I only download
the updates.

Could it be that the file size similarity on your computer is due to the
file being expanded once it is on your system?


--ron

"Ron Rosenfeld" wrote in message
...

Could it be that the file size similarity on your computer is due to the
file being expanded once it is on your system?


I dunno. They were both .pdf files, not processed with any file
compression/decompression software, just viewed in IE. Maybe I will email
them about it.

Stan

In article ,
Stan Prevost wrote:
I dunno. They were both .pdf files, not processed with any file
compression/decompression software, just viewed in IE. Maybe I will email
them about it.

PDF is already a compressed format (basically compressed PostScript with
some extensions). It doesn't compress very much. I also took one and
ran it through distiller (which is a PostScript program that simplifies
PostScript) and converted back to PDF (to get the compression) and it
didn't get much smaller.

Part of the problem is that the plates have had all the text exploded into
paths. That means that instead of `(ATIS 118.325) show' in PostScript you
get dozens of lines of coordinates and to render the font that was used for
the plate. It makes a lot of sense for a single plate (makes it much more
portable) but if you have 1000 plates it'd be far more efficient to have
one copy of the font.

On the other hand, laptop and PDA sized images rendered from the PDFs are
significantly smaller.

--
Ben Jackson

http://www.ben.com/

"Dan Luke" wrote in
:

My question had more to do with what hardware Stan's running his on.
I'm using a Sony notebook pc, which has a superb display but is
awkward to use in the airplane. The PDA's I've seen look too small
and have resolution too poor to tempt me. What are you using?

The latest Palms, specifically the T3 and T5, with 320x480 rotatable
screens, have excellent resolution, better than PPCs.

--
Regards,

Stan