Transponder shopping

The only used piece of equipment on my plane died ? my Narco AT-150 transponder. I verified that the box was dead by swapping units

If I could get working AT-150?s for $200 bucks, I might buy a couple and replace them as they fry but they don?t seem to be giving them away.

So, I am in the market for a new transponder. I have two requirments
1) The new unit must have the same faceplate footprint as the Narco. I don?t want to hack up my new panel.
2) I would like to use my Dynon 10A as the encoder.

The Garmin 320A looks like it might fit the bill but I can?t tell if it will take the Dynon as the encoder. Will it? Other suggestions? Thanks

McFly,

Yep, the Dynon will feed the 320A. As that is the set up I'm using.

BTW, the thing that pushed me to the 320A and away from the better, more costly options, is that I'm VFR only and I doubted it would be changed from 1200 very often.

That has turned out to be correct. In 46 hours of flying, I've been asked to "ident" exactly twice and have never been asked to change it from 1200. Even when I contacted CLT approach during my test period to let them know what I was doing outside of their airspace they never asked me to change it.

That is more indicative of the type of flying I like to do than anything else.

WITH SERIAL-GRAY CODE ADAPTER!

The D10 puts out gray code, but the D10A puts out only serial information for the encoder. The 320A uses gray code only. You will need the adapter from Dynon.

Used is good

McFly said:

The only used piece of equipment on my plane died ? my Narco AT-150 transponder. I verified that the box was dead by swapping units

If I could get working AT-150?s for $200 bucks, I might buy a couple and replace them as they fry but they don?t seem to be giving them away.

So, I am in the market for a new transponder. I have two requirements
1) The new unit must have the same faceplate footprint as the Narco. I don?t want to hack up my new panel.
2) I would like to use my Dynon 10A as the encoder.

The Garmin 320A looks like it might fit the bill but I can?t tell if it will take the Dynon as the encoder. Will it? Other suggestions? Thanks

Click to expand...

The Dynon is a serial input (two wire) and all older transponder are gray code, the 9 wire deal (or however many). However Dynon has a gray code to serial converter for only like $90, so an old transponder can connect to the D-10A. The original Dynon D-10 was gray code. If you want used there is King, Collins or Narco. I like the TDR950. Kings kt76 and 78 are classics. ARC actually has some OK transponder. Of course the Collins and ARC are orphans, not supported any more but there are parts. Collins (bought by Meggitt / S-TEC and the ARC are so plentiful parts are avaiable. Still as you know if the tube goes its almost not worth fixing since that one part is $600-700 outright. However the good news is the tube last a long long time. Check Ebay, Trade-a-plane. A good unit goes for $400-$800.

Other wise if going new I assume you would want solid state? Yea the low end Garmin GTX320A is OK. A friend got an early one and he had problems, but I think Garmin worked it out (thus the 'A' model). My gripe with some new transponders is they are all software driven. The upper end Garmin GTX330 transponder is heavy, weighing a pound more than the 320A. You will pay a premium for the small 2.25" round units (Micro air, Becker) at almost $2000. To me unless I am going to have mode-S, I just want a transponder and a used, Narco, King, Collins and ARC are fine for getting the job done. Plus you will save $650 to $1,400. If you don't want to go through the eBay hassle than many shops have used equip. You are going to pay $300-$400 more but you kind of know what you are getting.

Adapter tray...

McFly said:

......

The Garmin 320A looks like it might fit the bill but I can?t tell if it will take the Dynon as the encoder. Will it? Other suggestions? Thanks

Click to expand...

Garmin sells an adapter kit that will let the 320A fit into your existing AT 150 tray.
If the AT 150 worked with the encoder, the 320A will work too...

Hard to find details on the Garmin web site, but these guys sell it...

http://www.psavionics.com/productdisp1.asp?catID=3&ctid=57#

It's a little expensive at $200, but you can get some of that back by selling the 320A tray (which you won't need) and install kit on e-bay...

This would be an instant fix....

gil A

UPDATE

Missed the bit about changing encoder sources.

But, check out the VAF classified, I have a Dynon Parallel to Serial converter listed, it's still available....

Same thing happened to me.

McFly said:

The only used piece of equipment on my plane died ? my Narco AT-150 transponder. I verified that the box was dead by swapping units

If I could get working AT-150?s for $200 bucks, I might buy a couple and replace them as they fry but they don?t seem to be giving them away.

So, I am in the market for a new transponder. I have two requirments
1) The new unit must have the same faceplate footprint as the Narco. I don?t want to hack up my new panel.
2) I would like to use my Dynon 10A as the encoder.

The Garmin 320A looks like it might fit the bill but I can?t tell if it will take the Dynon as the encoder. Will it? Other suggestions? Thanks

Click to expand...

Except mine was the AT50. I didn't want to rewire anything so I went with the AT165, which would just slid in without anything else being changed. Cost about $1300.00.

Kent

looking for more options

So my options with the GTX320A are:

1) Get the GTX320A and a Garmin adapter, use the original tray and blind encoder ? approx $1600
2) Get the GTX320A and a Dynon adapter ,use the new tray ?guessing $1500

Seems like I am getting close to the GTX327 cost range. Are any adapters needed for the GTX327?

Do any of the older King units plug and play in the Narco tray?

This is not for the faint of heart!

Transponder

Call Wentworth at 1800-493-6896 and get a Narco used with a warrenty.
Around 4-600. Keep your tray and just slide it in
They are good to deal with.