Anywhere Map

I will spare you my AWM diatribe, but will inquire what the "true" cost difference is between the AWM system and all of its addons vs the cost of the 396 or 496. My gut feeling is that there isn't that much of a difference once you add everything up.

I used AWM for a couple years and eventually grew frustrated with it. I transitioned to the Garmin 296 and recently to the 496 and couldn't be happier.

Irrespective of what you chose, you will LOVE having weather in the cockpit. We have a nice color radar in our plane, but the XM weather, ATIS, winds aloft, freezing levels, taxiway diagrams, echo tops, and street maps really add a lot of value. Just be sure to spring for the full XM package (i.e. Aviator, not Aviator LT).

Edit - Note that AWM has an incorrect price listing for the 496.
 
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Dr. Dave (Let'sGoFlying) has AWM, and I believe that he likes it.

But you'd best hear it from his mouth. Virtual mouth, anyway.
 
I owned AWM for a while. Never used it in the plane though. My primary purpose was to use it when driving. A friend of mine really touted the virtues of AWM and all it's capabilities, so I ended up buying all the aviation stuff just for the hecht of it. I loaded it all on a Dell Axiom.

When the system worked, it worked great. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of buying a bluetooth GPS. For some reason, it would not keep the link and I would find myself having to go through the whole discovery process over and over. Not a good thing to be doing while careening down the road (or in an airplane).

The Axiom and GPS were given to several supposedly knowledgable people, but no one could explain why the bluetooth connection would fail and why it had to be totally recreated before it would work again. I finally got fed up with the whole thing and sold the kit and kaboodle on E-bay. I bought a Garmin Nuvi 350 instead and love it. It's not for aviation use, but that's not why I wanted it in the first place.

If I had gotten a wired GPS, I would probably still be using it and loving it, maybe even using it in the airplane. My advice, is to stay away from the bluetooth GPS. The big advantage to AWM over Garmin is the upgrade potential. When Garmin comes out with an upgrade, you're going to pay a few thousand for a new unit. When AWM comes out with an upgrade, at most you'll pay a few hundred.
 
I might be the only one that loves it, Spike! You can read all about what Jeff and I say about it here:
http://forums.aopa.org/showthread.php?t=33653&highlight=map
and one of my quotes:

"....useability is important."

me: "All I can say is I have useability-ed mine from Texas to Miami to Toronto Canada to San Diego to Seattle to Vancouver Island Canada South Dakota to Texas again and I friggin love it!"
 
Dave, you are not the only one who likes AWM.

I went with AWM as I already had a suitable PDA and bluetooth GPS unit and did not see a need to buy yet more hardware. I find that my system will run about 2-3 hours on internal batteries alone.

Bruce
 
I bought an IPaq based AWM at Oshkosh this last summer. It has a bluetooth GPS receiver. The IPaq has an integrated GPS that works very well without an external antenna in the Archer and the Cardinal that I regularly fly. It cost $1400 for the setup, including TomTomGo software for ground use, Anywhere Plate software, and years subscription to data updates.

I find the GPS functionality to be awesome! It's really terrific. I really like the terrain warning and antenna data.

I've been disappointed so far in the WX weather function. Downloads have been slow and somewhat unreliable. The AWM people say that many GPS units have been degraded by recent changes to the weather data stream made by XM. They provided an updated software rev this week that is working well in my car.

I'm going to fly it this weekend and I'll report back.
 
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I too have AWM which I purchased after getting an iPaq hx2295 and HP bluetooth GPS antenna bundled together for Christmas two years ago. Finally used it for a long XC in late August; performed just fine, although readability in daylight is not so great (dead horse, just thought I would beat it anyway).

I don't recall ever losing the bluetooth connectivity while "flying" it in the pickup truck when commuting over the past two years, so...

Ymmv.

Later,

Jim
 
Jeff S KDTW said:
I will spare you my AWM diatribe, but will inquire what the "true" cost difference is between the AWM system and all of its addons vs the cost of the 396 or 496. My gut feeling is that there isn't that much of a difference once you add everything up.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I know the price is wrong on the 496 but even with the options I would want (ignoring XM subscription which is the same for Garmin) the AWM is still >$1,000 less ($1,350 vs $2,395).
 
Yeah, I know the price is wrong on the 496 but even with the options I would want (ignoring XM subscription which is the same for Garmin) the AWM is still >$1,000 less ($1,350 vs $2,395).
Click to expand...
Does the AWM implement any of the features that differentiate a 396 from a 496? I don't think so.

So it's not $1000 cheaper than a 496, it's $450 cheaper than a 396. Or $200 less than a used 396:
http://shop.jaair.com/?step=productinfo&productNum=010-00425-00-USED

In return, you get a product that works really well, as opposed to a product that, well, sort of works.

This is all my subjective opinion, etc., but I bought an AnywhereWX system (a couple months before the 396 was announced, arrrgh) as an intended replacement for my 296. I found the system to be so poorly designed that I found myself not willing to give up my 296, and flew with both systems for a time, just using the AWM for weather. I eventually gave up, sold the AWM and the 296, and picked up a 396, and life is much better now.
-harry
 
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