Why not GNS 480?

[OR75]

it is interesting to read Olathe,KS on the back of the Garmin units. it is or was where BK engineered / made their units. wonder how the anti-trust guys missed that.

[danb35]

Well, Garmin was started by a couple of former B/K engineers...  The story (at least Garmin's version; don't know if B/K would disagree) is that Gary and Min, working at B/K or whatever it was called back then, thought that GPS technology would be great for GA use.  Their bosses didn't think so, so they left and formed Garmin.  Turns out they've been eating B/K's lunch ever since.

[carusoam]

Well stated Dan.

-a-

[Awful_Charlie]

I have a 480 and a 430 in my Bravo - the 480 is my preferred unit and #1.  Unfortunately I may be going to get bullied into changing it by our EArSA lords and masters, who are insisting on 8.33 radios - if I can get away with the one then I'll stick with it, but if I have to have two 8.33 capable units, then an Avidyne looks favourite - the way Ga**in have behaved makes me not trust them any more

[bd32322]

Okay I played with the simulator and watched the youtube tutorial and this is light years ahead of my 430!!

One question for you 480 folks .. How do you use the infrared port to transfer flight plans to the unit? I couldnt see anything in the manual, but the youtube video mentioned the infra red port is used to beam in flight plan information.

Although the unit makes it simple to enter the plan directly on the unit itself. But it would be nice to beam it from a computer.

[carusoam]

I have seen several ir ports on computers, but never have seen them actually work. BT seems to have delivered on the wireless promise...

Best regards,

-a-

[Awful_Charlie]

Okay I played with the simulator and watched the youtube tutorial and this is light years ahead of my 430!!

One question for you 480 folks .. How do you use the infrared port to transfer flight plans to the unit? I couldnt see anything in the manual, but the youtube video mentioned the infra red port is used to beam in flight plan information.

Although the unit makes it simple to enter the plan directly on the unit itself. But it would be nice to beam it from a computer.

 

Unfortunately that bit never had the software written for it by Garmin, so it remains something we can only hope they consider including in the next software release.  I guess as IR ports started to get dropped from phones and PDA's in favour of bluetooth the priority went away, but I see the new Samsung has one, so maybe they will make a resurgence - who knows?  If you're serious about using a 480, I suggest you join the 480 yahoo group

[FlyWalt]

I know this is an old thread but I wanted to toss in a THANK YOU for all the good comments on the 480. 

in November 2014 I upgraded the 35 year old panel in my 231 with several (new to me) toys. The GNS480 has been an absolute pleasure to work with once I got used to the interface.

It has every bit of functionality that I need or could ever use at half the price of a 430W.

Cheers,
W

[Jerry 5TJ]

On 3/15/2013 at 6:51 PM, danb35 said:

Well, Garmin was started by a couple of former B/K engineers...  The story (at least Garmin's version; don't know if B/K would disagree) is that Gary and Min, working at B/K or whatever it was called back then, thought that GPS technology would be great for GA use.  Their bosses didn't think so, so they left and formed Garmin.  Turns out they've been eating B/K's lunch ever since.

I worked at Allied-Signal at the time (late 80s, early 90s) which then owned Bendix and King Radio.   Allied-Signal was a Fortune 50 company with more than 100,000 employees.   Yes, some of us in new product and technology development wanted to more rapidly introduce new GA avionics to replace the hugely successful Silver Crown series.   Large corporations sometimes have trouble focusing on breakthrough developments when extant product lines are apparently robust, and entrenched interests often fail to identify a dozen guys in a garage as viable competitive threats.    I left in 1995 to join more flexible and fast-moving start-ups, but that's another story.