Avidyne 550 vs Bendix/King Aeronav

[Gagarin]

I noticed that the Avidyne 550 GPS navigator has an identical layout to the Bendix/King Aeronav. Is this a coincidence or a common manufacturer for both? Even the graphics are the same.

[EricJ]

https://lmgtfy.com/?q=Aeronav+Avidyne

[LANCECASPER]

2 hours ago, Gagarin said:

I noticed that the Avidyne 550 GPS navigator has an identical layout to the Bendix/King Aeronav. Is this a coincidence or a common manufacturer for both? Even the graphics are the same.

 

Avidyne manufactures them in Melbourne, Florida and they have an agreement with Bendix King who re-brands them, but they are the same units.

[Gagarin]

8 minutes ago, LANCECASPER said:

Avidyne manufactures them in Melbourne, Florida and they have an agreement with Bendix King who re-brands them, but they are the same units.

Thanks for the info.

[N201MKTurbo]

The navigators are great, the radios are crap, check the specs. I have had issues that haven’t been resolved. A Bonanza in Tucson has the same problem and he hasn’t got it fixed yet either. 

[EricJ]

1 hour ago, N201MKTurbo said:

The navigators are great, the radios are crap, check the specs. I have had issues that haven’t been resolved. A Bonanza in Tucson has the same problem and he hasn’t got it fixed yet either. 

Weird.    Mine's been great.   I suspect they may not be created equal.

 

[N201MKTurbo]

2 minutes ago, EricJ said:

Weird.    Mine's been great.   I suspect they may not be created equal.

 

Have you talked to Tucson approach on 119.4 lately?

[EricJ]

1 minute ago, N201MKTurbo said:

Have you talked to Tucson approach on 119.4 lately?

No, are there particular frequencies that are problematic?    Is Tx or Rx the issue?    You can assess Tx quality by listening to the liveatc recordings with you transmitting.   Rx is easy enough to judge.   

 

[LANCECASPER]

1 hour ago, N201MKTurbo said:

The navigators are great, the radios are crap, check the specs. I have had issues that haven’t been resolved. A Bonanza in Tucson has the same problem and he hasn’t got it fixed yet either. 

I bought the IFD540 in 2014 and had no problems receiving or transmitting. I upgraded to an IFD550 in 2017 and no problems receiving or transmitting.

[gsxrpilot]

Yeah, I've had my IFD540 for three years now and never had a problem with the radios.

[M016576]

5 minutes ago, gsxrpilot said:

Yeah, I've had my IFD540 for three years now and never had a problem with the radios.

Same with my IFD440, which I’ve had since 2015

[N201MKTurbo]

Just now, EricJ said:

No, are there particular frequencies that are problematic?    Is Tx or Rx the issue?    You can assess Tx quality by listening to the liveatc recordings with you transmitting.   Rx is easy enough to judge.   

 

Yes, I’ve tried them all. It’s just 119.4. As I said before, there is a Bonanza at AVQ with the same problem. They swapped out his whole unit  and the problem persists. They told me I had to change out my coax to RG400, I did, my interior fell apart and I had to replace the plastic so the coax job cost about $2000 and 6 weeks of my time. Didn’t do a thing. I tried 4 different antennas, they all had the same SWR in the respective locations. Made sure the bonding was as good as it could get. Nothing changed the problem. Also the sensitivity isn’t very good. Center is often  staticy, If I switch to the KX155 I can hear them just fine. The sensitivity specs for the Avidyne aren’t very good. I checked them with my service monitor and I thought something was wrong with the receiver, but I checked the specs and the receiver was within specs, the specs weren’t very good.

[N201MKTurbo]

I’m glad everyone is having good luck with their Avidyne equipment. I wish I was. After spending over 20 AMUs I thought my avionics problems were over. 

The Avidyne has a powerful transmitter and it is putting out rated power. Nobody has ever complained about hearing me.

[Marauder]

I’m glad everyone is having good luck with their Avidyne equipment. I wish I was. After spending over 20 AMUs I thought my avionics problems were over. 

The Avidyne has a powerful transmitter and it is putting out rated power. Nobody has ever complained about hearing me.

 

I had a lot of initial issues with my GTN 650 opening squelch. That turned out to be a firmware issue.

 

Later I was having issues with certain Center frequencies. Turns out the issue was the JPI 900 remote warning indicator. Ferrite ferrule corrected that problem. I would double check that the correct firmware settings are being used. The shop who installed mine did not use the correct settings. Another shop corrected those settings. Also, I would go through the plane and look for anything in the plane that could possibly cause interference. Who would have thought a stupid remote warning indicator could cause interference that blocked only certain frequencies?

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

[N201MKTurbo]

3 hours ago, Marauder said:

 

I had a lot of initial issues with my GTN 650 opening squelch. That turned out to be a firmware issue.

 

Later I was having issues with certain Center frequencies. Turns out the issue was the JPI 900 remote warning indicator. Ferrite ferrule corrected that problem. I would double check that the correct firmware settings are being used. The shop who installed mine did not use the correct settings. Another shop corrected those settings. Also, I would go through the plane and look for anything in the plane that could possibly cause interference. Who would have thought a stupid remote warning indicator could cause interference that blocked only certain frequencies?

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

Oh, I'm just a bit frustrated. I'm working so much that I don't have time to deal with Avidyne during the work days. It actually works fine on all the frequencies except 119.4. Most of the flying I have been doing lately is just to Tucson and every time I fly there I have to use 119.4. It is very annoying plus I have to explain to my passengers what that awful noise is and why the controllers sound so awful. If I power down the Avidyne I can communicate on the KX155 just fine, but I like having the Avidyne on.

[EricJ]

13 hours ago, N201MKTurbo said:

Yes, I’ve tried them all. It’s just 119.4. As I said before, there is a Bonanza at AVQ with the same problem. They swapped out his whole unit  and the problem persists. They told me I had to change out my coax to RG400, I did, my interior fell apart and I had to replace the plastic so the coax job cost about $2000 and 6 weeks of my time. Didn’t do a thing. I tried 4 different antennas, they all had the same SWR in the respective locations. Made sure the bonding was as good as it could get. Nothing changed the problem. Also the sensitivity isn’t very good. Center is often  staticy, If I switch to the KX155 I can hear them just fine. The sensitivity specs for the Avidyne aren’t very good. I checked them with my service monitor and I thought something was wrong with the receiver, but I checked the specs and the receiver was within specs, the specs weren’t very good.

Next time I'm down that direction I'll try that freq and see what happens.    Depending on what receiver architecture they use there could be a number of design deficiencies that might do that, or there might be an interfering piece of equipment (in-panel, whatever) that you may have in common with the Bonanza that is causing an issue.    You might try power off various other equipment to see if it helps, e.g., power adapters, unneeded radios/equipment/etc.   It just takes one oscillator spur to do that, and it could be coming from anywhere.

 

[N201MKTurbo]

12 minutes ago, EricJ said:

Next time I'm down that direction I'll try that freq and see what happens.    Depending on what receiver architecture they use there could be a number of design deficiencies that might do that, or there might be an interfering piece of equipment (in-panel, whatever) that you may have in common with the Bonanza that is causing an issue.    You might try power off various other equipment to see if it helps, e.g., power adapters, unneeded radios/equipment/etc.   It just takes one oscillator spur to do that, and it could be coming from anywhere.

 

I’ve done all that. The interference goes away when I power down the Avidyne. The Avidyne makes the KX155 unusable on 119.4 also.

[Baker Avionics]

2 hours ago, N201MKTurbo said:

I’ve done all that. The interference goes away when I power down the Avidyne. The Avidyne makes the KX155 unusable on 119.4 also.

My thought is that when the Avidyne was installed the KX155, the Transmit Interlock wire probably wasn't installed and when transmitting on the KX155, because the IFD is so sensitive in RX mode, it was getting pumped directly into the RX portion of the IFD.  Now the damage probably has been done.  It is a real issue as the 530 and 430 series of "Big G" had the same issue and numerous times, shops that do not know what they are doing do not connect that wire and it ruins the units.  Just FYI.  

 

We actually are sending a flying clubs 430 in because they had this problem and had "A shop" that installed the #2 radio numerous times and just tried to adjust the squelch and sensitivity instead of installing that wire.  Now the receive is weak and garbled/noisy and unreadable.  Hmmmmmmmm 

[N201MKTurbo]

1 hour ago, Baker Avionics said:

My thought is that when the Avidyne was installed the KX155, the Transmit Interlock wire probably wasn't installed and when transmitting on the KX155, because the IFD is so sensitive in RX mode, it was getting pumped directly into the RX portion of the IFD.  Now the damage probably has been done.  It is a real issue as the 530 and 430 series of "Big G" had the same issue and numerous times, shops that do not know what they are doing do not connect that wire and it ruins the units.  Just FYI.  

 

We actually are sending a flying clubs 430 in because they had this problem and had "A shop" that installed the #2 radio numerous times and just tried to adjust the squelch and sensitivity instead of installing that wire.  Now the receive is weak and garbled/noisy and unreadable.  Hmmmmmmmm 

So I looked it up in the install manual and it says it is unused. There are no references to it in any of the wiring diagrams.

[N201MKTurbo]

So, FWIW

The published sensitivity for the Avidyne is 4uV. The KX155 is 2uV (typical 1uV). I measured the Avidyne at 4.5uV and the KX155 at 0.8uV.

So saying that the Avidyne has a very sensitive receiver, is just not true. 

[EricJ]

30 minutes ago, N201MKTurbo said:

So, FWIW

The published sensitivity for the Avidyne is 4uV. The KX155 is 2uV (typical 1uV). I measured the Avidyne at 4.5uV and the KX155 at 0.8uV.

So saying that the Avidyne has a very sensitive receiver, is just not true. 

Does the sensitivity change with frequency?   i.e., is it different at 119.4 than other frequencies?

Not sure how you're measuring the sensitivity, but if you can vary frequency that might be worth a try.    I have a portable signal generator that can do that if needed.

 

[N201MKTurbo]

3 hours ago, EricJ said:

Does the sensitivity change with frequency?   i.e., is it different at 119.4 than other frequencies?

Not sure how you're measuring the sensitivity, but if you can vary frequency that might be worth a try.    I have a portable signal generator that can do that if needed.

 

This is what I used

[EricJ]

5 minutes ago, N201MKTurbo said:

This is what I used

I think cavemen used those to debug fire.

If you want I can pop down sometime and 1) make a calibration pass at that thing with a decent spectrum analyzer (has it been calibrated this century?),   2) bring a slightly more modern signal generator.   

[N201MKTurbo]

1 minute ago, EricJ said:

I think cavemen used those to debug fire.

If you want I can pop down sometime and 1) make a calibration pass at that thing with a decent spectrum analyzer (has it been calibrated this century?),   2) bring a slightly more modern signal generator.   

It works fine, Cushman’s never go out of calibration. Besides, the problem isn’t with the signal generator, it is the radio.

[EricJ]

6 minutes ago, N201MKTurbo said:

It works fine, Cushman’s never go out of calibration. Besides, the problem isn’t with the signal generator, it is the radio.

Let me know if you want another set of eyes on it.