XMRadio Satellite Weather Has Arrived

I have had the opportunity to test out the new XMRadio Satellite
Weather system (www.wxworx.com) enroute to Oshkosh... The unit is a
demo unit which has been somewhat delayed from the initial planned
production date of July 1 -- I am planning a Forums talk Wednesday
7/30 at Oshkosh on portable weather datalink and I wanted to include
the XMRadio system in the discussion. Due to the production delay, I
have been able to review the unit "cross-country" in a motorhome
enroute to Oshkosh although not yet in the airplane (yes, I know, it
should be illegal to arrive at OSH other than in an airplane, but the
motorhome turns out to be a lot more "family friendly" for camping).

Anyway, as a brief initial reaction I would say I am favorably
impressed. The final price is $629 for the hardware (plus a laptop
computer or PDA) and $49/month for unlimited weather datalink, which
is much cheaper than Echoflight or Controlvision. There is a bit of
"wire clutter" but much less than satellite phone systems I have seen
(i.e. Echoflight or Controlvision) and the portable nature of the
system is a big plus to renters.

The biggest plus of all is that weather download is automated -- no
need to keep requesting weather updates or fiddle with the computer...
while it takes a bit of hardware and software setup, once it is
configured you can let it do its thing automatically.

The digital signal processing produces images which have similar
resolution to Intellicast but seem less "sensitive" -- that is, the
location of storms well matches that on Intellicast but a lot of the
light areas on Intellicast which turn out to be virgia or minimal
precip aloft do not show up on the WxWorx system. I am not sure yet
which graphical presentation of weather I prefer (Intellicast vs.
WxWorx) but in the end they both give the critical information. The
WxWorx system also displays lightning strikes, graphical cloud tops,
and some text weather.

These are basically initial impressions...I will play with the system
a bit more over the coming weeks. For those who are attending Oshkosh
and want to get a look at the physical hardware and some screen
snapshots, my Forums presentation will be Wednesday 7/30 and a link to
the scheduling details of the presentation is on my web page at
www.flyimc.com


--
Richard Kaplan, CFII

www.flyimc.com

Richard Kaplan wrote:

snip
These are basically initial impressions...I will play with the system
a bit more over the coming weeks.

Thank you very much, Richard, for continually taking the time to post
about uplinked weather options. As a recently instrument rated pilot
(March '03), I have been pulling my hair out over the last several weeks
trying to decide which uplink weather solution is right for me.

I have a Bendix/King MFD, but the only weather solution now or in the
near future that displays on this MFD is, naturally, Bendix/King's
product. Two major disadvantages with their product is cost and the
fact that it is a ground-based solution.

IMO, a satellite based weather product, such as WSI or XMRadio, seems to
be the superior choice except for the display option, which is either a
laptop or PDA that adds loose wires and equipment to a cramped cockpit.

At some point I am going to need to jump off the fence and make a hard
choice. Your reviews go a long way to educate me on some of the
alternate choices.

--
Peter

"Peter R." wrote in message
ds.com...

IMO, a satellite based weather product, such as WSI or XMRadio, seems to
be the superior choice except for the display option, which is either a
laptop or PDA that adds loose wires and equipment to a cramped cockpit.

I agree the "clutter factor" is an issue with a laptop or PDA in the
cockpit.

On the other hand, the fact that the XMRadio product has a portable antenna
and thus will work in your car, on the hotel porch, etc. when out of town is
an attractive option. And of course for renters portability is the only
option. And for instructors like me who teach in multiple airplanes besides
my own, portability is a nice option even if it does mean dealing with
"laptop clutter."

But better than all this, realize that both WSI and XMRadio plan to "soon"
release panel-mount versions of their hardware to work with certified
MFDs... considering the cost of that type of installation, it might very
well be worth it to experiment with both these systems in their portable
form to figure out which one you want as the installed panel-mount version
later on. You could probably later sell the portable versions on Ebay and
recover a good deal of the money.

--
Richard Kaplan, CFII

www.flyimc.com

Richard Kaplan wrote:

But better than all this, realize that both WSI and XMRadio plan to "soon"
release panel-mount versions of their hardware to work with certified
MFDs...

Sadly, I have had a few WSI sales people tell me that their weather
product will probably never interface with the B/K MFD, as B/K is not
releasing their MFD specs to WSI. These folks speculated that the
reason for this is that B/K is purposely reducing the number of uplinked
weather solutions on their MFD to one; their own package.

When it's your ball and your field, you are allowed to make up your own
rules.

--
Peter

"Peter R." wrote:
Sadly, I have had a few WSI sales people tell me that their weather
product will probably never interface with the B/K MFD, as B/K is not
releasing their MFD specs to WSI. These folks speculated that the
reason for this is that B/K is purposely reducing the number of uplinked
weather solutions on their MFD to one; their own package.

When it's your ball and your field, you are allowed to make up your own
rules.

Might be sad for aircraft owners, but BK would be foolish to do otherwise.
BK is investing in ground uplink stations all over the US - why should they
help owners go to the competition?
--
Dan
C172RG at BFM

Dan Luke wrote:

BK is investing in ground uplink stations all over the US.

Sounds like a bad decision to me. The satellite services are going to
kill them; unless they can keep third parties from cracking their MFD
interface. BK is on the Apple Computer road (for GA anyway).

"Dan Luke" wrote in message
...


Might be sad for aircraft owners, but BK would be foolish to do otherwise.
BK is investing in ground uplink stations all over the US - why should
they
help owners go to the competition?

They should help owners go to the competition in order to sell MFDs.

This is exactly analogous to the situation years ago when personal computers
were evolving and open platform systems prospered due to 3rd party software
and hardware, while proprietary computer systems eventually became extinct.

Or to put it another way, BK is on a path to become the avionics equivalent
of Macintosh computers.

The whole idea of investing in an MFD should be to have confidence that
future avionics devices will interface with it. If BK treats its MFD as
proprietary and useful only with other BK products, then they have given
aircraft owners a major reason to be fearful of buying their MFD and
becoming locked into only BK produ]\

--
Richard Kaplan, CFII

www.flyimc.com

An update the PDA version of Weatherworx (see www.navair.com) :

While I am extremely impressed with the laptop version (www.wxworx.com), I
saw the PDA version and I am not impressed. I find it difficult to get
enough data in range on the PDA to be useful for strategic purposes. In the
best case it would require a lot of button pressing or stylus work on the
PDA in-fligh to keep track of weather.

With the laptop version (which is cheaper than the PDA version by the way),
it is possible to get enough data on the screen so that you never need to
press any buttons or do any other adjustments.. set up the wires and
software before flight and then just look over to the laptop in-flight to
get updates each 5 minutes with no extra pilot workload whatsoever.. this is
really nice.

There are also two features on the laptop version which in many ways exceed
the abilities of expensive MFD-type weather datalink systems. First, it is
possible to click on any portion of the radar image and get an exact readout
of intensity from 0dB to 75dB; this is much better than the typical 6 VIP
levels we currently use in interpreting radar data.. .this could really help
to decide weather to fly in level 3 precip; there is a big difference
between 25dB weather and 50dB weather and anywhere in between. Second, it
is possible to click on the precip tops image at any point and get a readout
of the cloud tops at that particular point... these are very powerful
features to help interpret a radar image, and these features are not even in
$10K to $15K panel-mount weather datalink systems.

The only real downside to the WeatherWorx system is the wiring; I am going
to try to work out a briefcase with a large DC power supply which is totally
self-contained; I could then use this also in the car driving through
thunderstorms or precip to get a sense of what the radar images are telling
me.

Finally, WeatherWorx has said verbally at Oshkosh that later in the year
they are planning a reduced price subscription which will be "substantially
less than $49 per month" and which will include METARs, TAFs, and Nexrad but
not echo tops or lightnight or other advanced features.

--
Richard Kaplan, CFII

www.flyimc.com

When can we buy the XM unit? I have sent email and used the web based
form on their site, and no response... Any ideas???

Lenny Sawyer

Richard Kaplan wrote:
"Peter R." wrote in message
ds.com...


IMO, a satellite based weather product, such as WSI or XMRadio, seems to
be the superior choice except for the display option, which is either a
laptop or PDA that adds loose wires and equipment to a cramped cockpit.


I agree the "clutter factor" is an issue with a laptop or PDA in the
cockpit.

On the other hand, the fact that the XMRadio product has a portable antenna
and thus will work in your car, on the hotel porch, etc. when out of town is
an attractive option. And of course for renters portability is the only
option. And for instructors like me who teach in multiple airplanes besides
my own, portability is a nice option even if it does mean dealing with
"laptop clutter."

But better than all this, realize that both WSI and XMRadio plan to "soon"
release panel-mount versions of their hardware to work with certified
MFDs... considering the cost of that type of installation, it might very
well be worth it to experiment with both these systems in their portable
form to figure out which one you want as the installed panel-mount version
later on. You could probably later sell the portable versions on Ebay and
recover a good deal of the money.




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"Lenny Sawyer" wrote in message
...

When can we buy the XM unit? I have sent email and used the web based
form on their site, and no response... Any ideas???

Call Baron Services/WxWorx at 256-881-8811 or 321-751-9202
--
Richard Kaplan, CFII

www.flyimc.com