Should You Squawk 7600 for Radio Re-Boot

eetrojan

eetrojan

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eetrojan
The other day while inbound for Chino (KCNO), after having checked in with tower about 7nm out over Santa Ana Canyon (VPLSA) and being told to make left traffic for runway 26L, my Garmin 430 NavCom went belly up and re-booted itself. The re-boot takes about a minute.

This particular rental has done this to me a couple of times in the past, so it didn't freak me out. On the other hand, the prior times were always while I was enroute and not so close to landing.

I just continued inbound while it re-booted. Should I have squawked 7600 for such a short-term loss of coms?
 
No. :no:

You know the radio will be up in a minute. ATC will communicate information to you if you missed anything. This is why they must have pertinent info repeated. Don't tie up that radio explaining what happened unless asked.
 
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I've accidentally hit the master before when turn on the lights. I'll just let the 430 reboot. I think during the reboot process you actually get the radios back before the reboot is complete.
 
ARFlyer said:
...I'll just let the 430 reboot. I think during the reboot process you actually get the radios back before the reboot is complete.
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Yeah, don't squawk. I always tune Wx on my 430 before shutting down, that way I start getting the Wx about 3 seconds after hitting the avionics master while it boots up. You would have been just fine if they called you.
 
Go out and buy a cheap handheld,so you can at least listen to tower,during re boot.
 
frfly172 said:
Go out and buy a cheap handheld,so you can at least listen to tower,during re boot.
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Or get the avionics fixed so they work properly... I'd hate to be on a GPS approach in IMC and my nav/com go belly-up.
 
HighFlyingA380 said:
Or get the avionics fixed so they work properly... I'd hate to be on a GPS approach in IMC and my nav/com go belly-up.
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It's been squawked, but it doesn't seem to get fixed.

Fortunately, this plane is almost always flown VFR. Because the plane is an LSA, and because the GPS is not kept up to date, it is rarely used for IFR.
 
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register@teamandras.com said:
The other day while inbound for Chino (KCNO), after having checked in with tower about 7nm out over Santa Ana Canyon (VPLSA) and being told to make left traffic for runway 26L, my Garmin 430 NavCom went belly up and re-booted itself. The re-boot takes about a minute.

This particular rental has done this to me a couple of times in the past, so it didn't freak me out. On the other hand, the prior times were always while I was enroute and not so close to landing.

I just continued inbound while it re-booted. Should I have squawked 7600 for such a short-term loss of coms?
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I heard someone call ATC and said they had to reset their electronics. But it was well before I got into the valley. I was still with Joshua Approach. It took them about a minute.

I was at Chino yesterday too. I got in IFR on the ILS before the marine layer burned off.

I've never had a radio "reboot". It sounds like it loses electrical power and goes through the turn on bit checks again?
 
Any radio that needs more than two seconds to reboot the user interface was designed wrong as a radio.

Which, frankly, pretty much also covers why Garmin's radios also sound like ****, too.

Digital engineers with nice computer formulas for audio circuits don't make good analog AM radios. And the field has lost way too many people who knew how to analyze analog audio circuits in their heads, for it to ever recover that lost ability.
 
Heh, you don't have these questions in the glass cockpits. Gotta wait for the G1000 to boot before I can change squawk codes anyway.
 
ChrisK said:
No second comm radio?
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Oddly, no. The only radio in this particular plane is the one built into the Garmin 430 Nav-Com GPS unit that occasionally re-boots itself.

I've always wondered why the standard old Garmin SL-30 radio that is in many of the other planes has two transceivers, but the relatively expensive Garmin 430 Nav-Com has only one transceiver.

If I'm with flight following, I always have to ask for a temporary frequency change to get the WX. Pain in the backside.
 
I remember taking apart a narco mark12 in-flight to fiddle with the tuning. I guess that problem hasn't gone away, it's just taken on a new form.
 
Pretty sure a 430/530 radio starts working before the screen indicates it online with it tuned into the frequency you were previously tuned into (providing it's working right) - but I could be making this up.
 
jesse said:
Pretty sure a 430/530 radio starts working before the screen indicates it online with it tuned into the frequency you were previously tuned into (providing it's working right) - but I could be making this up.
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This is true of the few planes I've flown with a 430.
 
I've called via cellphone outside of Class C, they gave me a 02XX squawk over the cellphone and cleared me to land then hung up. :lol:
 
coma24 said:
I have a KX-155 for COM2 and it's my #1 radio. I use the Garmin 430 for checking ATIS and that's about it.
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I have a GNC-250XL which I thought had pretty good audio, then an icom A210 found its way to the #2 spot. I like the icom over pretty much every radio I've used as the knobs are easy to turn, it sounds great, and the display is nice.
 
register@teamandras.com said:
It's been squawked, but it doesn't seem to get fixed.

Fortunately, this plane is almost always flown VFR. Because the plane is an LSA, and because the GPS is not kept up to date, it is rarely used for IFR.
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Almost all LSAs are not certified for IFR.

And in my experience a handheld with out an external antenna will only work 5-10 miles out.
 
ejensen said:
Almost all LSAs are not certified for IFR.
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This is one of the few that is IFR certified, although only legally used with its VOR/ILS indicators since the GPS database is not being updated.

During my PPL training, we took off through an overcast layer several times, and I once got vectored around in the clouds for sequencing and got to land (well watch my instructor land) using the ILS. Great experience, but I wouldn't want to use this plane to get my instrument rating given the fact that it only has one radio, and a finicky one at that.
 
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