What does the 396 or the 496 do that the 296 will not do assuming I do not want to buy a monthly subscrition to use it.
Tim

Oh I love spending other people's money...

Tim, get the 396 or 496. Once you start using the XM weather and XM radio you'll be paying that subscription with a big grin on your mug every month. It is so nice to have the weather and all the radio channels. I went up tonight for about an hour just to bomb around in the dark, and listened to old radio dramas on the XM. Magic stuff.

Gump

What does the 396 or the 496 do that the 296 will not do assuming I do not want to buy a monthly subscrition to use it.

Cost more.

Sorry...I really don't know crap about any of them. I'm envious of your x-country flight though. Hope your new plane is a gem... what fun.

qmdv wrote:What does the 396 or the 496 do that the 296 will not do assuming I do not want to buy a monthly subscrition to use it.
Tim

www.garmin.com

The 296 and 396 are almost identical save the XM capability. The 396 can "talk" via cable to some Garmin MFD's and navcomms. Also it blurts computer voice warnings for terrain and approaching waypoint/destination, where the 296 only "beeps."

The 496 has the same features as the 396 plus:

Faster refresh rate (does it matter at 150 knots or less? Doubtful.)

Proprietary airport taxi diagram and airspace information

Access to the AOPA airport directory information

I'll be keeping my 296 until I live somewhere where I can take advantage of XM (not here.)

...but if you get the subscription, don't forget the winds aloft with the 496, starting at the ground, then every 3000 feet. With the price of gas now days, it could easily pay for that subscription price. John

The XM subscription can include winds aloft, unless you choose the Aviator Light package. Either the 396 or 496 will show any of the same weather info.

As noted, the only difference in the databases is the 496 has the entire AOPA airports database on it.

And the refresh rate is faster.

I have a 396, and I completely agree with Gump.

MTV

I have a 196 and it does everything I need. The gray scale works well and the only info I seem to look at is groundspeed, distance to,estimated time to, and then just reference the compass navigator and "wala" magic. I do use the built in glideslope when decending from way up. For $700 I'm very pleased. Can you imagine what Linberg would think of one. Just my two cents.

Thanks
Dan

The 496 shows grass strips, worth every penny!!!

Do any of them show private strips?

Tim

they show ALL the grass strips that are charted, and give the info on them. You can set it to see at any level.
That saved my bacon one day, had a plane go quiet and just passed over a 3000 ft grass strip, closest paved was 15 miles.

I would have never knew the strip was behind me and so close.
Ki

qmdv wrote:Do any of them show private strips?

Tim

If the strip is private, and published, only the 496 has it in the database. The 396 has only public, published airports. But, entering user waypoints in a 396 (or 296 or 496) is a breeze and I've built up on that database quite a bit in the two years I've owned mine.

The 496 has the on-screen airport/taxiway diagrams for the larger airports, which would be cool if one was to ever have a desire to fly in to such a place, but all taxiway info I want nowdays is gopher hole and sagebrush avoidance. GPS won't help much in that department.

Gump

once&futr_alaskaflyer wrote:I'll be keeping my 296 until I live somewhere where I can take advantage of XM (not here.)

I had pretty good XM radio reception all the way up to FAI, and that was with the XM antenna on the glareshield. Mounted outside and up top would have made it even better.

XM weather on the other hand... Only Lower 48.

Gump

I've got the 196 and have been happy with it. As far as the private airstrips are concerned, the 196 doesn't have 'em, but you can put 500 of them into your gps for free. Go to here:

http://navaid.com/GPX/

They will point you to sources of waypoint downloading software and they have a database engine that will pull FAA data into a transfer file that the software will load on your gps. For discussion purposes, all the private airstrips in Oregon, plus about a 100 mile overlap into Washington, Idaho, Nevada, and California came to 475 waypoints.

This process isn't trivial, but if you don't mind monkeying with things, I found it a good way to get the extra airstrips loaded. This process would suck for a long cross country because 500 waypoints would not be enough, but for most of my exploring, it has been fine.

The software recommended on the above page is dedicated to transfering stuff between computer and gps. I prefer to use my National Geographic State Series Topo mapping program. I frequently load waypoints of interest from the map to the gps. For example, the New Carrisa, shipwreck on the Oregon coast. I found the location on the map, then transfered the coordinates to my gps. Flying over the spot with the gps was then a piece of cake.

The one feature I wish the 196 had is terrain avoidance.

tom

I also have a 196. Since I fly only VFR, it has been almost the perfect GPS for me. However, now that Savannah-Tom has pointed out how to download private strips, it is perfect!

It is like they say: "You never miss what you don't know about".

I would never go back. I am sure the first guy to have VOR thought he was was "doing it" in tall cotton too.

GumpAir wrote:

once&futr_alaskaflyer wrote:I'll be keeping my 296 until I live somewhere where I can take advantage of XM (not here.)

I had pretty good XM radio reception all the way up to FAI, and that was with the XM antenna on the glareshield. Mounted outside and up top would have made it even better.

XM weather on the other hand... Only Lower 48.

Gump

Yeah, I meant the weather products. Not worth it for me to upgrade units and buy the subscription just for the music. I have an iPhone for that

I have the 196 in my 93 Maule mx7 180A, and although terrain avoidance and weather would be nice, it really does everything else very well. I also have the option of running it on AA batteries and not just a dedicated battery pack when not plugged in to a power supply.

once&futr_alaskaflyer wrote:Yeah, I meant the weather products. Not worth it for me to upgrade units and buy the subscription just for the music. I have an iPhone for that

True, but down here it's worth it for both features.

And, as is being reported on the other forum, I bet that guy being busted for the DC airspace violation would be breaking out the credit card for a 396 and XM weather subscription about now if he could take it all back.

Gump

I had read about the 496 but hadn't had my hands on one. Then we did the CT to UT trip in January and all I can say is Wow!, what a great unit! I've always been a Garmin fan. Easy to use and so much functionality. It really was an incredible asset to have along on the flight. (Namely the XM wx). When I can afford on, it will be added to my flight bag. Actually, I'm hoping that my flying club will hard wire one into each of our planes. Then I won't have to buy it.