Garmin Data Cards

Does anyone know the format of the data cards for the GNS 530? Our club is
putting them in our small fleet, and we are considering buying extra data
cards to make the updates easier. The Garmin price seems high. If these are
standard cards, we may be able to do better elsewhere. Anyone have any
experience to share?

Brad

Brad Salai wrote:
Does anyone know the format of the data cards for the GNS 530? Our club is
putting them in our small fleet, and we are considering buying extra data
cards to make the updates easier. The Garmin price seems high. If these are
standard cards, we may be able to do better elsewhere. Anyone have any
experience to share?

Are all your data sources certified for navigation?

Brad Salai wrote:

Does anyone know the format of the data cards for the GNS 530? Our club is
putting them in our small fleet, and we are considering buying extra data
cards to make the updates easier. The Garmin price seems high. If these are
standard cards, we may be able to do better elsewhere. Anyone have any
experience to share?

Brad

The license for the navdata is for one unit. If you figure out how to
distribute the data for use in more than one unit at the same time, you will
not only have a contractual issue, I suspect the FAA would be inclined to
withdraw the IFR certification of the installation (s).

On Sat, 27 Aug 2005 10:46:14 -0400, Stubby
wrote:



Brad Salai wrote:
Does anyone know the format of the data cards for the GNS 530? Our club is
putting them in our small fleet, and we are considering buying extra data
cards to make the updates easier. The Garmin price seems high. If these are
standard cards, we may be able to do better elsewhere. Anyone have any
experience to share?

Are all your data sources certified for navigation?

I don't read their message as attempting to outsource the Jepp data,
just the SD card it's stored on.

FWIW, after one of my SD cards fried on my G1000 I picked up one at
CompUSA, used Jepp Skybound to format it, and haven't had a problem
installing updates.

Your mileage may vary depending on the source. The KLN94 cards are
specially formatted at King and can't be sourced elsewhere that I know
of.

Peter wrote:
Peter Clark wrote
....
But why would it invalidate the data for IFR? Can anyone supply a
reference stating that a breach of GPS navdata copyright invalidates
the IFR certification of the GPS installation?

Something is either certified or it's not. The idea of it's database
being invalidated by something else doesn't apply.

On Sat, 27 Aug 2005 17:23:25 +0100, Peter
wrote:


Peter Clark wrote

The KLN94 cards are
specially formatted at King and can't be sourced elsewhere that I know
of.

The KLN94 data card is an off the shelf compactflash card, with a
hacked filing system (not the normal FAT16/FAT32) so that it cannot be
accessed in a normal digital camera sort of CF writer.

I don't know the latest on this but Honeywell used to sell a Sandisk
CF writer (which I have one here, never used it yet) for which they
supplied a driver which was hacked to write it. I believe they now
sell a somewhat more recent product - the Sandisk unit was
discontinued even at the time I bought mine.

The sandisk reader/writer that Honeywell sells (SDDR-31, they still
have some) for Internet downloads for the KLN94 will not format a
blank card, only combine with their software to write their datafile
to a preformatted card. It also has some special firmware (available
on their website for download) that you need to use for the
card/reader to be recognized. Unless someone has hacked the format of
the file system to allow end-users to create the special cards, you
can still only get a card that will work from King.

Unlike the internet downloads (which are fixed-up to the particular
KLN94 serial number) the CF cards aren't, and if anyone found a way to
duplicate them they could share the data among others.

The database key (which changes occasionally) is linked to the card,
not the unit. If you have multiple cards for one unit, you need to be
careful which DB key you use - write the wrong one to the card and
it's useless. Ask me how I know.... But you can take a valid card
and shove it in any KLN94 and it'll work just fine. Anyone who could
successfully duplicate the entire card, including the DB key storage
system, would have a fully functioning card for any unit.

I'd guess Garmin are the same

At least for the G1000 package, the Jepp Skybound software allows you
to format the data cards directly. Lose/damage/want a spare card,
whatever, just grab one with the right or more capacity and use it.
You don't even leave the navdata card in the airplane, it downloads it
to NVRAM and you take it with you. so it's not as inconvenient as the
King system if you don't have two cards.

That's not what we are trying to do. We don't have a computer with a fast
internet connection at the airport, so we have to write the new data every
month at a remote location (our maintenance officers house). We are going to
buy duplicate cards so that we can prepare three of them, and go to the
airport once and install them in the three airplanes. We will have three
subscriptions.

I was just trying to find cards for less than the $130 each that Garmin
charges for them. If they are 256 meg SD cards, that is way higher than they
can be gotten for elsewhere. We just don't know what they are yet because we
haven't gotten our first 530 installed.

Brad
wrote in message ...


Brad Salai wrote:

Does anyone know the format of the data cards for the GNS 530? Our club
is
putting them in our small fleet, and we are considering buying extra
data
cards to make the updates easier. The Garmin price seems high. If these
are
standard cards, we may be able to do better elsewhere. Anyone have any
experience to share?

Brad

The license for the navdata is for one unit. If you figure out how to
distribute the data for use in more than one unit at the same time, you
will
not only have a contractual issue, I suspect the FAA would be inclined to
withdraw the IFR certification of the installation (s).

It's called a monopoly for a reason. Garmin is charging & getting all they
can for them. Garmin does not warranty them, "if you fry 'em you buy 'em."
If you wear it out, buy another one. "From us, of course."

If someone could find a source, I w/b all too willing to get a another
spare.

Thx, {|;-)

Victor J. (Jim) Osborne, Jr.

"Brad Salai" wrote in message
...

I was just trying to find cards for less than the $130 each that Garmin
charges for them. If they are 256 meg SD cards, that is way higher than
they
can be gotten for elsewhere. We just don't know what they are yet because
we
haven't gotten our first 530 installed.

Brad

On Sat, 27 Aug 2005 13:20:46 -0400, Stubby
wrote:



Peter wrote:
Peter Clark wrote
...
But why would it invalidate the data for IFR? Can anyone supply a
reference stating that a breach of GPS navdata copyright invalidates
the IFR certification of the GPS installation?

Something is either certified or it's not. The idea of it's database
being invalidated by something else doesn't apply.

'Twas not me who asked the question....

"Brad Salai" writes:

[...] I was just trying to find cards for less than the $130 each
that Garmin charges for them. If they are 256 meg SD cards, that is
way higher than they can be gotten for elsewhere. [...]

According to the Jeppesen Skybound USB card writer thingie,
modern 430/530 data cards have a mere 4- or 8-MB capacity.

- FChE