That is a long fence.... -----Original Message----- From: az-geocaching-bounces@listserv.azgeocaching.com [mailto:az-geocaching-bounces@listserv.azgeocaching.com] On Behalf Of Roping The Wind Sent: Saturday, December 30, 2006 10:28 PM To: listserv@azgeocaching.com Subject: [Az-Geocaching] Garmin Rino 530 review! (long!) Well, after much thought and online research and finding answers to some of my questions and concerns... I finally purchased 2 Garmin Rino 530's! I ordered them from gpsnow.com and as usual, got the same great service I have had from them in the past. As it was just before christmas and considering the purchase was for more than $800 worth of GPS/Radio's, I went ahead and just paid for the priority overnight/Fedex shipping for $25 (its all a write off!). Well, the snowstorm in Denver and the midwest delayed them and they got here 2 days later anyways! But got them on Friday before christmas. Upon opening the boxes, I found two nice shiny new Rino 530's and all the usual extras. There are a number of extra components to this unit with the battery pack, chargers, USB cable, etc. As usual, Garmin put together a very detailed and informative (and fat!) owners manual. I spent the better part of the afternoon reading the manual and learning about all the features of the 530's. I had read the entire manual online before ordering the units. But now with the unit in my hand, reading the manual much more familiarized me with the unit. Much like my 60C, the Rino is very similar, not quite as wide and a bit taller though. Very well constructed and heavy duty. The software is very similar and the 530 is very easy for me to navigate. There are a couple of new pages and features that I dont have in my 60c. The radio of course is one of them. Alot of people say these Rino 530/520 radios are expensive, but they really arent. The 60CSX cost just as much as one of these so you are basically getting a GPS with a radio thrown in... and that is about what it is. More on the radios shortly. First off, battery life is killer awsome! The Lithium Ion battery pack was at about 80% out of the box. I charged them up to 100% the day I got them. Since then, I have used the units a few times around the neighborhood (getting used to the position reporting feature and trying to get a feel for the clarity of the radios and the range). I have made a couple of quick geocache finds with the units and I have done two balloon flights with the units and the battery life is still reading just about full!!! So definetly very impressed with the new battery packs and wouldnt mind seeing these types of battery packs on the 60 series. Although they do make the Rino's rather bulky to hold. I do, however, still find them comfortable to grip and hold onto. I purchased 2 cases for them of course to protect them and keep them clean. The cases are designed very nicely to accomodate all the buttons, thumbstick, mic, speakers, as well as a velcro opening on the back to be able to recharge the battery pack without taking the cover/sleeve off the unit. Not sure what the drop off curve will be like with the Lithium Ion battery packs though or how long they are suggested to last. GPS: The GPS is very nice and I am very impressed with it. They lock onto satellites just as quick as my 60C. Most all the features of the GPS on the Rino 530 is just like my 60C. However, the additional features of the 530 (that my 60c does not have, but a CS and CSX does have) is the barametric pressure sensor and altimeter as well as the electronic compass. First, the compass. I love it. I love having a true compass in my GPS unit. Prior, I had to be moving to see my heading. With the electronic compass, I can stand still and turn and see my new heading. It makes the map kind of jumpy when in map mode when standing still. If you move the unit every so slightly, the map really jumps around. But I realized the settings can be changed. So I set the eletronic compass to become 'heading' when at 1mph or faster for more than 45 seconds. If I am moving less than 1 mph (or standing still practically) it switches back to the electronic compass. The compass is great for ballooning as the unit also features a sighting mark on the top of the unit and the unit can be used as a sighting compass. This is very useful for pre flight ballooning. I no longer have to carry a compass with me. The altimeter is of course awsome as well! I love having the 'true' altimeter reading and not just an elevation reading. The normal elevation reading on my 60c is not that much off of my aircrafts altimeter, but this altimeter in the Rino 530 was dead nuts on to my altimeter in my balloon on both flights. Also, the unit has a rate of climb/descent feature which I also found to be extremely accurate to my vertical speed indicator on my instrument cluster in my balloon. So I am very impressed overall with the GPS unit. Of course, a new Garmin 60csX would also do what this Rino does (the rino does not have a SD card to add memory like the csX but does still boast 56megs of internal memory which is the same as my 60c, which is plenty for me). Now to the radios: so far, not very impressed. I will not say I am dissapointed in the radios yet, but I am so far definetly not impressed with them. The first opportunity we had was during the rain and storm last week. I gave a radio to a family member who stayed here at the house while I walked around with the other unit. I walked about 1.6 miles all around my neighborhood. We were using the GMRS at 5 watts. I never was more than maybe .30 mile or so from the house at any time though. The clarity I thought was plenty nice and communication was generally clear and clean. The position reporting feature is kick ass cool! Each time either radio 'keys up', it sends a position report to the other rino unit. This allows me to see where my other rino is at any time by simply looking at my color map display on my unit. As I moved around the neighborhood, the other unit at my house was displaying my new position with each update! When I got home, I compared the tracks on both units. The other unit had my track log right on it! There was a slight difference in that the track log on the house unit said I walked 1.4 miles when my actual unit said I walked 1.6 miles. The track was just about complete. But did show me cutting a few corners (which I did not, the unit just doesnt complete my track if I dont update my position often enough). A really cool feature to see my track on another GPS unit! The next day was christmas day and I went for a quick geocache close by, about 2.5 miles away. These radios advertise a 12 mile range. Well, I wouldnt expect to get that and really didnt expect ground-to-ground to get 2.5 miles either. But figured since most radios only advertise a 2 or 4 mile range, I figure these Rino 530's with 5 watts would perhaps have the ability to reach from my house to this geocache 2.5 miles away. Well, the rain made it very difficult to get the signal out very far and I lost communication at about 1/2 mile away from the house (on the other side of the freeway as well, so not even line of sight). I kind of expected that though and that would be expected of a 'bubble pack' type handheld FRS or GMRS radio. The first balloon flight had me staying pretty close to my chase crew on the ground. They were never very far away. Reception was great and communication went fine. I did think it was a bit scratchy at times and the clarity not as good. But didnt notice it too much that it bothered me any. No problems communicating on this whole flight and the position reporting feature was simply awsome. I am impressed with this feature. But I do wish it could do more. Its nice being able to look down at my GPS map and see where my ground chase crew is at! The same for them as they can see me (in relation to my location on the earth) in the balloon. On the second flight, the atmosphere was very moist. No fog, but there was a very high moisture content in the air. So that will downgrade a radio signal a bit, I believe. My ground crew stayed at the launch site while I flew off. I got about 3 miles away and at about 3,500' and while we could communicate and understand each other, the clarity sucked. There was a time when I was almost straight above my crew at about 1,500' and the clarity again sucked. So not sure that I am very impressed at all with the radios. I found my 15 year old Motorola VHF handhelds to be MUCH clearer and a MUCH better range. I have talked over 30 miles line of site clear as a bell with my 1 watt VHF radios! I am still not sure about range, but I am not confident these Rino 530's at 5 watts will do very well at all. The first flight we were close together the whole time, the second flight the atmosphere was very wet, so maybe I havent gotten a true sense of what the GMRS radios are capable of yet. I do know that VHF radios can handle these conditions MUCH better. All in all, I am half and half on whether or not I really like these units for my application. The GPS is awsome and very impressed with it. But I could pay half this much and get a 60CSX and have all the features that I like about the 530 GPS (electronic compass, altimeter, barametric pressure, sighting compass, etc). The position reporting has a downside as well, they DO NOT have an auto sending feature to automatically send your position. You do have to key up to send a new position report. Almost makes this feature worthless. Unless you keep talking (or keying up), you will not know where the other rino unit is, only its last known position. The FCC used to not allow data transfer thru GMRS frequencies, but Garmin somehow pulled some strings with the FCC to get the position reporting feature into the Rino units. However, the FCC would not allow data to be sent on a continuous basis (which is understandable, as it would perhaps jam the frequency). So the unit only allows a position report to be send once every 30 second and only manually. Personally, I dont see any harm at all in just allowing the units to auto send once every 10 minutes. I think 10 minutes is perfect spacing for position updates. As it stands how, I think they are going to find rino users keying up MUCH more frequently just to send an update of their positions. I did see on the Rino users group on Yahoo that someone made a little gadget that plugs right into the mic jack of the Rino unit that will allow the unit to send regular updates of your position every 45 seconds or so. This would technically be illegal of course. But someone has instructions on how to make one! It is rather cool. Someone also made a mod to a Rino 110 to improve on the antenna to make it accept an external antenna! Anyways, we will continue to test the Rino for a couple more flights along side my VHF radios to see which is truly a better radio. At this time, I am not impressed with the radio feature of the 530's at all. But maybe we just have not had good atmospheric conditions yet to see what they are capable of. FRS/GMRS radios dont generally have very good range at all if conditions are not perfect. Still, we are line of site from balloon to ground vehicle, I would expect better of a 5 watt radio. Again, clarity generally sucked as well. I am not sure if altitude is good for the radio range either. I had better communication when flying low. Something else interesting to note: The Garmin Rino 530 has a weather radio on it. There are 7 channels. I have one of those weather radios at home here. With the home unit, I can generally clearly pick up Phoenix and Gila County stations, and only on occasionally pick up Tucson. I cant ever get northern AZ/Flagstaff. With the Rino 530, I can pick up all 4 of these channels clearly... every time! The GPS side of the unit is of course right up to what I would expect from Garmin... a great GPS unit. All in all, the investment for 2 of these units was over $850. For about $450 or so, I could have a 60csx and have all the great new features of the 530 in the GPS that I now am in love with and is awsome for my application (ballooning). As it stands now, I really like the Rino 530's in that they are truly a 3 in 1 device. Rather than carrying a sighting compass, a radio and a GPS in my balloon... I have all three of these devices in one and right in my front shirt pocket and right handy when I am flying. Actually, it is almost like a 5 in 1 unit as it has my altimeter and my vertical speed indicator as well! With that said, I have mixed emotions about the 530's. I really like all the great GPS features as well as the position reporting, but simply just not impressed with the radios. We will try them out on a couple more flights in better conditions and see what results that brings and make a final decision on whether I stick with these GMRS radios or go back to my old VHF radios. Communications is very important with my balloon operations and we cant expect anything less than perfect with it. If the radios on the Rino's simply dont meet my standards, I am definetly going to be picking up a 60csx to have all the great added features that I now simply must have!!! :) Then perhaps sell the Rino's and maybe seek out a higher watt VHF radio! :) (always in search for something better!!!!) Scott Team Ropingthewind _________________________________________________________________ Get live scores and news about your team: Add the Live.com Football Page www.live.com/?addtemplate=football&icid=T001MSN30A0701 ____________________________________________________________ Az-Geocaching mailing list listserv@azgeocaching.com To edit your setting, subscribe or unsubscribe visit: http://listserv.azgeocaching.com/mailman/listinfo/az-geocaching Arizona's Geocaching Resource http://www.azgeocaching.com ____________________________________________________________ Az-Geocaching mailing list listserv@azgeocaching.com To edit your setting, subscribe or unsubscribe visit: http://listserv.azgeocaching.com/mailman/listinfo/az-geocaching Arizona's Geocaching Resource http://www.azgeocaching.com