XMRadio Satellite Weather Has Arrived

Richard, thank you for posting the info on the xmradio weatherworx. I,
like many, have been searching for reliable in-cockpit weather
solutions. The closest thing to affordibility so far has been anywhere
wx from control vision, but even that is a bit pricey, and a rats nest
of wires. I use the Palm i705, and you just can't beat it for
portability and cost. However, as reliable as it is, even in flight,
there are too many times, when I just didnt get a signal or reply when
making an inflight weather request from CBAV or TurboWX.
For that past month, I have been using a poormans version of the
control vision solution...
Globalstar SAT phone, $595 list/$495 with rebate/$395 reconditioned
Ipaq H3635 pocket pc, on ebay for $100 (or any pocket pc), you can
even hook to your i705 and switch back and forth between the wireless
palm network and the SAT connection. I prefer the higher resolution
and color on the Ipaq for maps.
Globalstar data cable, $69;
IPAQ Serial Cable (not a hotsync cable, they are not the same) $20;
SAT phone is $35/month and .99/minute with 30 included min/month, or
$50/month with 120 minutes/month, .75/minute after that.
Control Visions deal is $25/month, first 100 mins free, then .99/min
after that.
A wide range of service plans to fit both budget and use.

(I do not work for any SAT phone company or aviation product company)

Data comes down at 9.6Kbps,plus I can make reliable, consistant voice
calls in flight.
I have not had any problem aquiring and holding a SAT signal in
flight, as long as the antenna is held reasonbly close to a window.
The glare shield is fine.
Admittedly, this is a request/reply setup, and I typically use
weathertap.com and flighbrief.com for inflight weather. Not that it is
very useful or fast, I can browse the web in flight, including pop3
email, etc etc...

The result is, I am juggling only a PDA, a short cable, and the sat
phone. Not Bad.

Did you ever notice how big and cumbersome even the smallest laptops
are when in the cockpit? Screen visibility in sunlight is another
concern.

About the only thing I see that XMradio has to offer is its
"broadcast" technology, and (I assume) greater bandwidth...not that
these are bad things.

BTW, I have a Delco Xmradio mounted on the pedestal of my mooney, with
the low profile antenna hiding on the glare shield...works great...but
I can't listen to Limbaugh.


Jeff Doran
Mooney N1159P ACY

As far as WeatherWorx vs. Palm VIIx, I think the people who will pay
$49/month for WeatherWorx and deal with the wiring clutter are people who
use their airplanes fairly often for practical IFR travel. I think other
people will stick with the simplicity, compactness, and economic advantages
of the Palm VIIx. They each have their advantage. To hook up Weatherworx,
you need to set up the computer, satellite receiver, and XMRadio box,
certainly not something you could/would do on the fly in the air. The
advantage of WeatherWorx is that once this is all set up, it updates
automatically during the flight so it is a lot less distracting. The
advantage of the Palm VIIx is that it can just sit in the side pocket of
your airplane and you can turn it on basically on a whim if you see
unexpected weather. On top of that, the Palm VIIx runs on just 2 AAA
batteries, vs. WeatherWorx which requires either a freshly charged
laptop/PDA battery or else a connection to the airplane's cigarette lighter
power source.

"Jeff Doran" wrote in message
m...


Did you ever notice how big and cumbersome even the smallest laptops
are when in the cockpit? Screen visibility in sunlight is another
concern.

Yes, I am somewhat concerned about that, but I know a pilot whom I have
worked with for recurrent training who swears by the WSI In Flight system
with a laptop and he says it is not inconvenient at all.. we'll see in a
month or two after some more pilots (include myself) get a bunch of
practical experience using XMRadio in the air. Maybe one of the RAM
computer mounts will be an option. Also XMRadio is supposed to support
PDAs, but we will have to see the details how well that works and what
features it can support on a PDA.


About the only thing I see that XMRadio has to offer is its
"broadcast" technology, and (I assume) greater bandwidth...not that
these are bad things.

I think the "broadcast" technology advantage is immense since this allows
5-minute updates without having to worry about cost.

I think the automatic aquisition feature of XMRadio is a major advantage
over the satellite phone setup you describe -- I have tried that myself and
decided that logging onto the Internet in-flight and making regular requests
for weather was just too much of a distraction in any sort of weather where
I really wanted the datalink information... Here with WxWorx once everything
is set up on the ground it updates the signal automatically and should not
require any pilot input at all.



--
Richard Kaplan, CFII

www.flyimc.com

Just a quick clarification/update as I have had time to test this system
some more and ask a few more questions from the manufacturer:

First of all, the $629 price for the laptop-based WxWorx on Wings system by
Baron Services does not include an additional $30 for the antenna, which
brings the total cost to $659.

Second, the power requirement for the XMRadio receiver is 9VDC; however,
there is a voltage stepdown at the input to the receiver so it will accept
between 9V and 23V and therefore they anticipate it will be compatible with
most aircraft electrical systems.. .this is similar to the situation with
battery-powered GPS devices, which need to accept varying input voltages.
This is particularly important on 24V aircraft electrical systems which have
a stepped down "12V" cigarette lighter output but where this "12V" may vary
depending on the impedance of the connected device.

Next, the PDA version of their system will be sold by a separate company
called NavAiir. The PDA version apparently will be demonstrated at Oshkosh
but will not be for sale for 2-3 more weeks. It will cost $999 without the
PDA and is recommended to run on newer/faster PDAs only. It will use the
same weather data as the Weatherworx/Baron Services laptop-based system.

So my conclusions/plans a

1. Clearly there is quite a web of companies working with XMRadio to produce
weather datalink systems; it may be hard to sort out the various
relationships and there may well be new products and new companies formed
over time.

2. Both the laptop and the PDA versions of the various XMRadio weather
datalink products will clearly be memory/processor intensive and may not
work with laptops or PDAs more than 1-2 years old - read the specs carefully


3. I am convinced that the quality of the data is well worth it in a GA
cockpit, though I am concerned about the practicality of the various wires
and power connections in the cockpit. I think what I will do for myself is
to use the laptop-based version of the WxWorx system, buy a couple of A/C
inverters at Wamart with rechargable batteries, and try to put together my
own "weather datalink briefcase" which will contain my laptop computer, A/C
inverters, XMRadio receiver, and assorted wires; this should then work in
the airplane or the car (for learning purposes as I drive through
thunderstorms) or anywhere else... the ultimate "nerd bag" for a
weaher-addicted pilot. If anyone else does something like this, shared
details would be helpful.


--
Richard Kaplan, CFII

www.flyimc.com

See these sites for updated info the laptop and PDA versions of WxWorx:

http://www.wxworx.com

http://www.airgator.com/Weather.htm


--
Richard Kaplan, CFII

www.flyimc.com

"Richard Kaplan" wrote in message news:d108be18406396d73f7173e630ed03bd@TeraNews.. .
See these sites for updated info the laptop and PDA versions of WxWorx:

http://www.wxworx.com

http://www.airgator.com/Weather.htm

Richard,

Do you know if the WxWorx software has provisions to accept an NMEA
GPS input from a serial port? It would be nice to see the weather
displayed track-up and relative to present position.

-Nathan

"Richard Kaplan" writes:


3. I am convinced that the quality of the data is well worth it in a GA
cockpit, though I am concerned about the practicality of the various wires
and power connections in the cockpit. I think what I will do for myself is
to use the laptop-based version of the WxWorx system, buy a couple of A/C
inverters at Wamart with rechargable batteries, and try to put together my
own "weather datalink briefcase" which will contain my laptop computer, A/C
inverters, XMRadio receiver, and assorted wires; this should then work in
the airplane or the car (for learning purposes as I drive through
thunderstorms) or anywhere else... the ultimate "nerd bag" for a
weaher-addicted pilot. If anyone else does something like this, shared
details would be helpful.


Errr.. what exactly are you trying to run from AC?

My point being, if you have a laptop to run, you want a straight
DC-DC adapter to power it. Radios Hack sells same, (All I see now
is #273-1867, but there are others I think) as do various laptop
speciality houses. They typically come with a mating plug for your
laptop that not-so-incidently programs the output voltage.

With such, everything should run off the aircraft. You could add
a 2-4 AhH gelcell for independence, but that will build your
arm muscles..
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Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433
is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433

"David Lesher" wrote in message
...

Errr.. what exactly are you trying to run from AC?

Yes, you are correct... that would be better.. I do not have a cigarette
lighter adapter for my laptop but it would certainly be easier to buy that
then to deal with an A/C inverter.. the A/C inverter was suggsed by the
WeatherWorx engineer but as I thought about it you are correc it makes do
sense to go from D/C to A/C and then D/C with all the complexity involved.

--
Richard Kaplan, CFII

www.flyimc.com

"Nathan Young" wrote in message
om...
Do you know if the WxWorx software has provisions to accept an NMEA
GPS input from a serial port? It would be nice to see the weather
displayed track-up and relative to present position.

Yes, it does indeed have this provision.. that is an extra $100 or so as a
software feature. For most handheld GPS systems you can use the NMEA/serial
cable you normally use to update your GPS database.

--
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

"Ryan Ferguson" wrote in message
...

This would be a compelling reason for me to upgrade to a full-featured new
color PDA if it works well. My Palm VIIx is still pumping out the budget
wx, though.


See www.navair.com for details on the PDA product -- I tried it and am not
impressed; it is hard to get enough data on the screen for strategic weather
and there would be a lot of button/stylus work in-flight to use it
practically.

I think the laptop version (www.wxworx.com) is much more usable in flight.



--
Richard Kaplan, CFII

www.flyimc.com