Garmin 196 & SL30

[rickmellor]

I have an old 196 sitting in the closet collecting dust. I'm planning to upgrade to a 496 for my 7A, but I may use the 196 initially to get in the air more cheaply. I was looking at Garmin's site for upgrades and version 4.2 is available. A look at their FAQs for this thing says that it can key VHF radios. Is that correct!?

Does anyone know about this or has seen it work?

[lucaberta]

Rick,

looks like Garmin has backported to both the 196 and 296 the same features who first appeared on the 396, as far as interfacing with an SL30 radio. I have a 296 but was unaware they had done the same for the 196 users.

What happens with the SL30 when connected to an x96 unit is this. First of all, the GPS knows where it is (doh!) and will compare the current position to the VOR database, and send out to the SL30 the frequencies and IDs of the 10 nearest VOR station, so that they are preloaded in the SL30. It will then be very easy to tune the required VOR station, and let the SL30 do the morse code identifcation...

For the COM part, if an airport is either the current position or the next waypoint, the GPS will preload all the COM frequencies in the radio, allowing for a quick selection of the required frequency. You can also force tuning a frequency from the airport information page (getting there for instance from the nearby airports page) and hit ENTER to send the frequency to the SL30.

All this happens at 9600 bps, with proprietary UPSat/Apollo/Garmin NMEA sentences, interleaved with the normal NMEA data, all this having selected "Aviation In/NMEA & VHF Out" on an available COM port.

I have yet to see this at work, as I will be getting my SL30 in a couple of months time, hopefully, but I have gathered all the information I gave you by decoding the NMEA stream and understanding the rationale behind it... quite nice, I have to say... if only the x96 could display an HSI+LOC/GS on the screen when tuned to an VOR or ILS...

Let me know if this clarifies things.

Ciao, Luca

[Brian130]

I have a 196 with 4.2 and there's not an option for Aviation In/NMEA & VHF Out that I can find. I have Aviation In and NMEA In/NMEA Out but I don't see an option for anything that mentions VHF.

Is this the FAQ you saw?

Q. Can I interface my GPS unit with both a VHF radio and an autopilot at the same time?

A. You may interface your GPS unit with up to three external devices at the same time provided the versions of NMEA streamed by the GPS are compatible with the external device. To determine the versions of NMEA output by your GPS unit, refer to the product's owner's manual. This information is usually found near the back of the manual, just before the index.

[lucaberta]

Brian,

Originally Posted by Brian130

I have a 196 with 4.2 and there's not an option for Aviation In/NMEA & VHF Out that I can find. I have Aviation In and NMEA In/NMEA Out but I don't see an option for anything that mentions VHF.

I just checked the release notes for newer firmware updates on the 196 and infact there is no mention of support of SL30/SL40; such support is in the 296, 396 and of course 496, on the 296 at least version 4.00 of the firmware is needed, the release notes for 4.00 say:

Added support for tuning SL30/40 comm radios through 'Aviation In/NMEA & VHF Out' serial interface format.

Ciao, Luca

[rickmellor]

I guess I read a bit too much into 'VHF' in that FAQ. I just updated my 196 and don't see anything in there either. I'll ping Garmin support but it doesn't look good.

-Rick

[Tom Martin]

I know that my question is not related to a com but I am having difficulty getting my Trutrak ADI II to intereact properly with my Garmin 296. Do any of you guys know what settings I need to use on my 296 to get it to work properly. I can get gps heading information but the wing leveler will only work for a short time and in the NAV mode the autopilot will not work at all. Currently I have both units set for 4800 and the gps is set at NEMA in and out. Thanks in advance.

Tom Martin

[rickmellor]

I got a response from Garmin about VHF support on the 196 ... it's a negative. It looks like their system allows them to specify which products a FAQ applies to. In this case they selected the 196 because of multiple serial device support but missed the VHF bit. I knew it was too good to be true.

Here's the response from them:

Thank you for contacting Garmin:

The reason that that FAQ is under the 196 is for connecting to more than one
device at a time using the NMEA output. The GPSmap 196 does not have the
capability to connect to a SL 30/40 radio. At this time I have not heard of
any plans to add this to the unit.

Best Regards,
Dustin B.
Aviation Support Specialist
Garmin International
1200 E. 151st
Olathe, KS 66062
techsupp@garmin.com
(T) 800.800.1020
(F) 913.440.5488

Do any of you guys know what settings I need to use on my 296 to get it to work properly.

Tom, I haven't tried to hook anything up yet but from what you've said it sounds like there may be a bad connection or a fauly device somewhere in the loop. Other than running at 4800 baud instead of 9600, you've got it set as I would have expected. It doesn't look like anyone's responded to your thread on this ... have you tried contacting TruTrak?