REFLECTOR: WSI Weather with MX-20

[SlvEgl99 at aol.com]

Spike,
 Yes I do have the AV-100 WSI displaying on the MX 20. I also have the  
UPSAT/ Garmin AT stack and am completely pelased with the entire batch.  
Hellovadeal!!! Weather display is never over 4 minutes old - and the system  tells you 
how old, clear presentation with quite a number  of options, such  as text or 
visual metars, ability to track moving weather, display of cloud top  heights 
and direction and speed of movement. This is great during thunderstorm  season 
here in FL!!
 
I can tell you from experience that when flying in low ceilings with  showers 
and imbedded thunderstorms, it is great to know where the storms are,  what 
direction and speed they are moving, where the showers are and the  intensity 
of the percipitation, it gives one the ability to select a clear  route.
 
I have the annual subscription---thus there is no need to dial up  weather, 
no hesitation to use it as there might be if each use cost  money. And as it is 
based on satellite system, no (or few) dead areas. The  only dead areas are 
areas not serviced by Nexrad radar sites, and  there are damn few of those. 
Mostly in some of the more remote areas in the  west. And the system shows where 
those are.
 
I mounted the WSI antenna on a sheet metal ground plane on the underside of  
the canard hatch cover on the pilot side. Have to disconnect the cable to 
remove  the cover, but not a big deal. I simply bent the metal into an L shape 
with  flanges on the edges so that I could pop rivet the flanges to the underside 
of  the hatch cover. The ground plane covers about 1/3 of the hatch area, and 
that  seems to be quite enough. The WSI system is then mounted on top of the 
canard on  hardpoints that is glassed on. 
 
I think there is no difference between the AV100 and 200 except for the  cost 
and the fact that the 200 is for certified aircraft. No one has ever shown  
me any difference. 
 
Buy the 100, install it and I guarrantee that you will be happy with it. By  
the way, after I installed it I sold the lightning strike detector that I had, 
 for $4,000 and made quite a bit of money on the upgrade, and came out with a 
 much more user friendly, accurate system that needs very little 
interpretation.  What you see is what you get, no need to be a weather forecaster to 
understand  the graphics. I even tried to get the guy who bought the lightening 
detector to  forget it and install a WSI, but he was quite familiar with the 
lightening  system and someone had sold him on that -- probably 3 years ago.
 
The great advantage over normal aircraft weather radar is that you see the  
complete picture of the weather, not just the "leading edge" of the weather  
being reflected. As we know a radar system can not display the complete "storm  
package" ahead of you, only the front edges of storms being reflected to  the 
radar. 
 
I can not compare to the XM system as I have no experience with it and do  
not know how it works, but in my opinion beware of a system that requires you to 
 dial up and wait for a response or one that has you calculating the cost 
every  time you ask for weather. This is the same as a user fee system with all 
of the  issues there.
 
Nuff said?
 
Bob Wood
N658SE
XL FG
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