Thought users might be interested in my experience of SkyDemon during a trip this w/e.

Left Husthwaite (NY) Sat am, flew to Cromer (landed) flew onto Beccles (stayed over). Departed Cromer Sunday & flew to Weybourne (landed) took Off & went to N Coates and finally returned home around 5pm Sunday.

Comments areas follows. As previously, the features re vert nav, NOTAM warningss and clarity of maps are v good. Best in Class. BUT.....

1. The programme's auto-sensing of where you are on a route really does not work in a way that I find acceptable. I plumbed in a route that covered the whole trip. But when I started up at Beccles it informed my I was 140NM "off track". It therefore assumed I should have been back at my home airfield. No such problems with my G296 which made the correct assumption re where I was and what wd happen next. I should say it is indeed possible to "fool" the 296. If you have aroute that leaves and returns to home airfield with pretty similar legs and you start off on the reciprocal of your intended final leg, the 296 will automatically invert the whole plan! Does not happen often and I now know what to do about it.
2. This also mean that if ATC ask you to give estimate at next waypoint, you can't. Hopeless.
3. But SD's internal logic is simply not good enough for what I imagine is a pretty common usage. If you are just bimbling about you are not going to set up a route and plug into GPS.
4. The default offtrack alert is too senistive  .. being told I am 0.2NM off track is a pain.
5. Redrawing Map warning is simply annoying  .. cannot see why I need to be told at all  .. just get on and redraw asap.
6. Actual Time  .. not sure waht can be done about this one. The clock on my GPS (Navigon 8410) did not show the correct time in SD. If I loaded the normal Navigon program, then clock was correct (local time of course). And it was not just 1hr adrift to mean Zulu time. It was hours out.
7. As anothe 8410user has pointed out, sometimes it stops logging the track and re-fixes staellites. Works 100% in PFMS and in native Navigon. Feels like a snsitivity problem. I certainly do not want to have an external antenna  .. 8410 can get a fix indoors and so shd not drop the signal outside.

OVERALL

No way cd I use this unit as primary GPS even tho there is lots to like. Route logic is NBG. Drops signal too often. Some defaults need sorting but I know I can override.

FINALLY

How do I tell the unit I have a full license. Mobile Device Ctre does not work with 8410. Where do I put the license file? This also drove me nuts on 2 hr flight.

SD card sync  .. roll on this feature.

Of corse I write this not on the spirit ov overt criticism but in order to amke something that has huge potential to be basically usable in a real trip.

Cheers

David

As another Navigon 8410 user I thought I'd jump in.







That's right. The Navigon software sets the clock from the GPS signal, and that's the only way the clock is ever set on the device. The solution at the moment is to boot into the Navigon software occasionally.







Well, SkyDemon is actually involved here. As I've found myself, the software filters the signal being received by adding a DoP (dilution of precision) threshold: it chooses to ignore the GPS signal when the DoP exceeds this threshold because although it has a GPS location, the potential error on this location is too large (for SkyDemon's definition of 'large'). This will be why you observed a discrepancy in the ability to see your location between Pocket FMS and SkyDemon, even though you're using the same hardware. An external antenna solved the problem for me, but it's a 'problem' that was only created by the software.