Least Expensive ADS-B Out System

weirdjim

weirdjim

Ejection Handle Pulled
Joined
Jul 8, 2008
Messages
4,171
Location
Grass Valley, CA (KGOO)
Display Name
Display name:
weirdjim
I am going to postulate an absolutely virgin airframe. No transponder. No GPS. No nothing except a bare airframe getting ready to fly.

What is the least expensive way of getting ASB-Out today?

I'm looking at an Appareo that has GPS, transponder, and ADS-B out for about $4k. All the antennas, all the cables, and all the "stuff" comes in a box. Ready to install.

It needs an altitude encoder. Seems that the ACK parallel encoder is the least expensive option to do that.

Please don't worry me about ADS-B in right now. Just tell me if you've got a less expensive way to go for ADS-B out.

Thanks,

Jim
 
From what I've read.....NavWorx ADS600B is the cheapest. It has the transmitter for out....but no transponder. Any mode C transponder works with it.
 
Checkout_my_Six said:
From what I've read.....NavWorx ADS600B is the cheapest. It has the transmitter for out....but no transponder. Any mode C transponder works with it.
Click to expand...

That, also the best system that I've seen so far, the only system with the saftey of the masked ID with 1200
 
Checkout_my_Six said:
and a proposed AD....:confused:
Click to expand...

I could care less, and I'd be HIGHLY surprised if navworx didn't make it right, plus it's not hard to order one and make sure it's not a ADed one now, if you read the topics it seems like more of a case of the Feds not liking navworx for some reason, maybe some of the features of their product...

Ether way, the only viaible certified ADSB out option in my mind right now is the navworx, unless someone else has a box which doesn't send your sensitive information out when it doesn't have to (1200), plus it's also the least expensive and most easily adapted to the most airframes, no brainer IMO
 
James331 said:
That, also the best system that I've seen so far, the only system with the saftey of the masked ID with 1200
Click to expand...

That's the first I've heard that your info wouldn't be sent when squawking 1200. Ok, getting caught up here, read the next post. Yeah I'd expect that Uncle Sugar is going to nip that in the bud. What did you mean by "the safety of masked ID with 1200?" Sounds like there might be seem some shady intent here. lol
 
luvflyin said:
That's the first I've heard that your info wouldn't be sent when squawking 1200. Ok, getting caught up here, read the next post. Yeah I'd expect that Uncle Sugar is going to nip that in the bud. What did you mean by "the safety of masked ID with 1200?" Sounds like there might be seem some shady intent here. lol
Click to expand...

"AutoStealth(tm) Mode:
The UAT technology is the only ADS-B equipment that will allow for privacy. Normally, ADS-B devices transmit the aircrafts ICAO number, a unique code that is assigned by the FAA to each aircraft. When flying VFR however, there is no need to let the FAA know who you are. The ADS600-EXP randomizes the ICAO whenever the squawk code is set to 1200. In addition, the N-Number of the aircraft configured is changed to "N0", an unassigned N-Number."

No "shady" intent, in my years on this earth, as a law abiding person who doesnt hurt others and try's to leave things better than I found them, government workers and busy bodies have proved themselves to be a greater threat to me than the "thugs" and "terrorists" the government would like me to piddle myself over.

YMMV, but the only armed people who have aggressively approached me have been people who work for the government, and every time I wasn't even j waking..

There is Z E R O benifit to ME and MY FAMILY by transmitting personal data which can be turned into a name and adderess by anyone with Internet access and 2 minutes of free time. So I have risk and no reward, why would I choose a device which sends that data when I can buy a navworx for less money and not take on the additional risk of sending sensitive to everyone and their uncle

Besides its no ones business who I am when I'm flying around and not breaking the law, would you be OK with your name and address being attached to a moving dot on your car, that anyone could see, or the car your kids go to school in, of course not.
 
Last edited:
James331 said:
"AutoStealth(tm) Mode:
The UAT technology is the only ADS-B equipment that will allow for privacy. Normally, ADS-B devices transmit the aircrafts ICAO number, a unique code that is assigned by the FAA to each aircraft. When flying VFR however, there is no need to let the FAA know who you are. The ADS600-EXP randomizes the ICAO whenever the squawk code is set to 1200. In addition, the N-Number of the aircraft configured is changed to "N0", an unassigned N-Number."

No "shady" intent, in my years on this earth, as a law abiding person who doesnt hurt others and try's to leave things better than I found them, government workers and busy bodies have proved themselves to be a greater threat to me than the "thugs" and "terrorists" the government would like me to piddle myself over.

YMMV, but the only armed people who have aggressively approached me have been people who work for the government, and every time I wasn't even j waking..

There is Z E R O benifit to ME and MY FAMILY by transmitting personal data which can be turned into a name and adderess by anyone with Internet access and 2 minutes of free time. So I have risk and no reward, why would I choose a device which sends that data when I can buy a navworx for less money and not take on the additional risk of sending sensitive to everyone and their uncle

Besides its no ones business who I am when I'm flying around and not breaking the law, would you be OK with your name and address being attached to a moving dot on your car, that anyone could see, or the car your kids go to school in, of course not.
Click to expand...

Gotcha. I'm with you. It was a tongue in cheek punchline, hence the lol at the end.
 
There may be an opportunity for a "betterer" deal - watch these pages...
 
Be a little careful with "cheapest." Cheap might become very expensive in the long run:

The issue is the nature of the ADS-B market. Due to the gummint mandate, the number of ADS-B boxes shipped will climb like a rocket ship until 2020, then in 2021 begin a steep decline. By 2022 or 2023, the number of boxes shipped will probably decline to not many more than the number of new airplanes shipped. This small market will not be able to support all of the ADS-B vendors that we currently see.

So where will your "cheapest" ADS-B vendor be after the market disappears? Bankrupt? Obviously Garmin will still be around. Appareo has some other businesses that make it look like they will be around. L3, ditto. But I don't think any company that relies on selling ADS-B boxes as their primary business can survive. So if your vendor dies, then your "cheapest" box dies and is unrepairable by third party shops (who will have no factory support, maybe not even schematics), that box suddenly becomes very expensive because you have to throw it away and start over.

(By saying this I am not slamming or recommending any particular company. It is just the nature of this type of market that there will be a huge shakeout at the end. Ignore the inevitable at your peril.)
 
James331 said:
"AutoStealth(tm) Mode:
The UAT technology is the only ADS-B equipment that will allow for privacy. Normally, ADS-B devices transmit the aircrafts ICAO number, a unique code that is assigned by the FAA to each aircraft. When flying VFR however, there is no need to let the FAA know who you are. The ADS600-EXP randomizes the ICAO whenever the squawk code is set to 1200. In addition, the N-Number of the aircraft configured is changed to "N0", an unassigned N-Number."

No "shady" intent, in my years on this earth, as a law abiding person who doesnt hurt others and try's to leave things better than I found them, government workers and busy bodies have proved themselves to be a greater threat to me than the "thugs" and "terrorists" the government would like me to piddle myself over.

YMMV, but the only armed people who have aggressively approached me have been people who work for the government, and every time I wasn't even j waking..

There is Z E R O benifit to ME and MY FAMILY by transmitting personal data which can be turned into a name and adderess by anyone with Internet access and 2 minutes of free time. So I have risk and no reward, why would I choose a device which sends that data when I can buy a navworx for less money and not take on the additional risk of sending sensitive to everyone and their uncle

Besides its no ones business who I am when I'm flying around and not breaking the law, would you be OK with your name and address being attached to a moving dot on your car, that anyone could see, or the car your kids go to school in, of course not.
Click to expand...

+1
There's a lot of airspace that does not require ADS-B out equipment in an airplane flying VFR. Why should there be any difference in reporting rules for some airplanes in that circumstance versus others?
 
If what you're looking for is just cheap compliance, then yeah, waiting makes sense. But if what you want is greatly enhanced situation awareness in busy airspace, then equipping now makes sense. I installed the Navworx, and yeah, looks like I may have gotten bit. But every time I go flying, it strikes me as some of the best money I have spent. I was a skeptic, but no more.
 
Since your exercise assumes no existing avionics you may want to look at the Trig Avonics solution as well - transponder + gps waas source. Its also about $4k I believe.

I've been going through a similar exercise but decided last week to send my existing GNS back to Garmin for the WAAS upgrade, so that will be my ADS-B position source.
 
Chip Sylverne said:
If what you're looking for is just cheap compliance, then yeah, waiting makes sense. But if what you want is greatly enhanced situation awareness in busy airspace, then equipping now makes sense. I installed the Navworx, and yeah, looks like I may have gotten bit. But every time I go flying, it strikes me as some of the best money I have spent. I was a skeptic, but no more.
Click to expand...

Well... for some of us, the wait is related to the problems with ADSB and aerobatics. The FAA system cannot currently deal with some aerobatic maneuvers (Loops, etc.) and sees an ADSB "failure." Then you get a nasty note telling you to get your system "fixed" because of the "error" and report back. Turning the ADSB system off during aerobatics would solve the problem, but that is against regulations don't you know. IAC is working on it.

Ernie
 
I have a Cardinal RG with a Garmin 430W, and the solution we're going with is a Garmin 335 (ADS-B Out on 1090ES) only, and have a quote from Jefferson City Flight Services for a little over $4K installed. We plan on re-marketing our Garmin 327 transponder, which has a residual value of $700-800, to offset the installation cost. If we're early enough to qualify for the FAA rebate, that'll knock another $500 off, for a net cost of around $2800, and future-proofed for international flights. Comments?
 
Keith Monteith said:
I have a Cardinal RG with a Garmin 430W, and the solution we're going with is a Garmin 335 (ADS-B Out on 1090ES) only, and have a quote from Jefferson City Flight Services for a little over $4K installed. We plan on re-marketing our Garmin 327 transponder, which has a residual value of $700-800, to offset the installation cost. If we're early enough to qualify for the FAA rebate, that'll knock another $500 off, for a net cost of around $2800, and future-proofed for international flights. Comments?
Click to expand...

700-800 is slightly optimistic, 327's can be had for around 500-600 and value goes down the closer we get to 2020. Apart from that, go for it.
 
Good point on the resale price. I've heard that they can actually pull a higher price if re-marketed internationally where there's not as strong a mandate for ADS-B, but obviously higher risk. Either way, this is the least expensive, future-proofed upgrade we could find.
 
We're skipping the Garmin 345 option as we already have an active traffic alerting solution and XM weather on a Garmin 696. While we could save the XM subscription fee, the consistent coverage at all altitudes and better resolution are discriminators of XM over ADS-B. I use a Stratux ADS-B In receiver to get weather and traffic on my iPad / Foreflight combo, so have both systems available.
 
Basically said that it was not an approved ADS-B device... He's had multiple issues from the company too, and I feel bad because I recommended it to him. Basically its a $1900 paperweight now. YMMV, but I'd stay away from that company.
 
I'm old enough to remember the first hand held calculator coming out in the '70s. I think it may have cost around $70 back then which was a LOT of money. Now these things are hanging next to the gum at the check out counter for less than a couple bucks. Not that transponders are going to be hanging next to the gum but they will go down and I think before the 2020 mandate because of competition. I'll wait.
 
Timbeck2 said:
I'm old enough to remember the first hand held calculator coming out in the '70s. I think it may have cost around $70 back then which was a LOT of money. Now these things are hanging next to the gum at the check out counter for less than a couple bucks. Not that transponders are going to be hanging next to the gum but they will go down and I think before the 2020 mandate because of competition. I'll wait.
Click to expand...

The first hand held calculator with transcendental functions was the HP35 which came out in 1968 and the price was $700. In 1968 dollars, that was a month's wages for a newly minted engineer first year out of school and I damn near gave my wife a heart attack when I told her how much it was. I wish I had kept it; it is a museum piece. If you did an arc-cosine and then took the answer and took the cosine there was a rounding error in the tenth decimal place. HP recalled every one of them and replaced the chip to fix the error.

Jim
 
weirdjim said:
The first hand held calculator with transcendental functions was the HP35 which came out in 1968 and the price was $700. In 1968 dollars, that was a month's wages for a newly minted engineer first year out of school and I damn near gave my wife a heart attack when I told her how much it was. I wish I had kept it; it is a museum piece. If you did an arc-cosine and then took the answer and took the cosine there was a rounding error in the tenth decimal place. HP recalled every one of them and replaced the chip to fix the error.

Jim
Click to expand...

Friend of mine, first engineering job working on the pipeline in Alaska.

There was a dog and pony show at which Hewlett-Packard and Texas Instruments (both fine manufacturers) in turn extolled the virtues of their scientific calculators.

The Hewlett-Packard guy went first, going through all of the various functions and features of their device. The Texas Instruments guy went next, and his principal pitch was that, their calculator could do pretty much everything the Hewlett-Packard calculator could do, and cost substantially less.

In rebuttal, the Hewlett-Packard guy stood up, picked up the Hewlett-Packard calculator and threw it is hard as he could against the concrete wall, picked it up and demonstrated its continued proper operation.

The TI guy did not have an answer for that!

My friend, by the way, reported that, while he was working in Alaska, one of his colleagues misplaces HP calculator, and it was only found after a snowblower picked it up and pitched it. It still worked (although it didn't look too good).
 
weirdjim said:
The first hand held calculator with transcendental functions was the HP35 which came out in 1968 and the price was $700. In 1968 dollars, that was a month's wages for a newly minted engineer first year out of school and I damn near gave my wife a heart attack when I told her how much it was. I wish I had kept it; it is a museum piece. If you did an arc-cosine and then took the answer and took the cosine there was a rounding error in the tenth decimal place. HP recalled every one of them and replaced the chip to fix the error.

Jim
Click to expand...

LOL! Didn't have the HP-35 but did have the HP-45 during my college years, yep it was QUITE pricy for the times, a gift from my uncle. Survived all these years and I still use it on a daily basis. No longer works off of batteries, only the plug in cord. Survived all manner of abuse, getting drenched in beer at parties, being dropped, left outside.... Have had a number of others over the years, still my favorite and the easiest to use.
 
Also have an HP45 from my college days. Classmate of mine dropped his in the parking lot and it was run over. Pushed the keyboard in so all the keys were indented; still worked for the rest of his student years.
 
So my POINT was (not to hijack this thread) to wait until the ADS-B out transponders have gone the way of the expensive calculator and are hanging by the gum at the checkout isle.
 
Timbeck2 said:
So my POINT was (not to hijack this thread) to wait until the ADS-B out transponders have gone the way of the expensive calculator and are hanging by the gum at the checkout isle.
Click to expand...
Not gonna happen for a number of reasons.

First, the market is tiny. A few hundred thousand GA airplanes? If you comparison is scientific calculators, there are over six million scientists and engineers in the US and for them a calculator is not a one-time buy. So maybe a several-thousand to one market size ratio. Tiny markets do not justify highly efficient production line investments.

As important, the ADS-B market (see my post #12) is a particularly tough one for investment planning. No one is going to tool a large, highly efficient, and expensive production line to handle a two-year bubble. So the efficiency of production will be much lower than if there was a steady demand even in the ten to a hundred thousand per year range for each of the incumbent vendors. So the tactics will involve keeping prices as high as possible and running as much production as possible without making significant investment. I'm pretty sure even Garmin is making their ADS-B boxes on a general-purpose line. It wouldn't be a surprise to me at all if Appareo is using contract manufacturing for their products. Some of the smaller vendors are probably more like craftsman shops with board assembly farmed out and the guys assembling the individual boxes just sitting at individual work benches surrounded by little parts bins.

Where you will see bargains is from marginal suppliers. These are guys who are dying because they didn't capture enough market share to make themselves profitable or guys who are successful enough that they can't finance their receivables and inventory without fire-saleing boxes to generate cash. These are also the guys who will probably not be around in 2022. That was my point to the OP in post #12. The cheapest box is probably also the riskiest purchasing decision.

IMO, anyway.
 
mtuomi said:
700-800 is slightly optimistic, 327's can be had for around 500-600 and value goes down the closer we get to 2020. Apart from that, go for it.
Click to expand...

Sell it in Canada or someplace where ADS-B isn't mandated. I got $850 for my 327 recently doing just that.
 
FWIW I received a PM from a POA member who works in the Appareo sales organization and wishes to remain anonymous. He commented that his view of the market pretty well matches mine. He also said that Appareo is not using contract manufacturing. Rather they are making their ADS-B products in house in what is apparently existing manufacturing capacity.
 
weirdjim said:
The first hand held calculator with transcendental functions was the HP35 which came out in 1968 and the price was $700. In 1968 dollars, that was a month's wages for a newly minted engineer first year out of school and I damn near gave my wife a heart attack when I told her how much it was. I wish I had kept it; it is a museum piece. If you did an arc-cosine and then took the answer and took the cosine there was a rounding error in the tenth decimal place. HP recalled every one of them and replaced the chip to fix the error.

Jim
Click to expand...

OT, but you'll like this blast from the past... Jim and all...

The HP-01 calculator watch.

Frankly some of the features on it are still impressive to this day and they fell out of favor on calculators overall, which is sad. The thing can do a lot more than most modern calculators.


No, I don't have one. And if I did, I'd not wear it because I beat the holy hell out of watches.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top