GPS Talk

Today is October 29th. A Thursday. It's blustery outside. Both of my airplanes sit safely tucked in the hanger. They both got their annuals done. They have no squawks on them. Anyone who owns an airplane knows there is no such thing as "no squawks". Every time I get everything fixed, something else breaks. This time it was the GPS unit in the Cher OH kee. It just stopped being able to compute. It was acquiring the space vehicles, but couldn't go from there. This is an old, but nice, panel mounted, Apollo 800 with data card. It doesn't have a moving map. Everyone says you simply must have a moving map. I really like the old Apollo, and I don't give a damn that it doesn't have a map. I have a portable Garman 196 which has a moving map, and I never use the map feature. The 196 by the way is a great unit. Most people have the 296 or the 396 or something better. But the 196 is cheap. I paid $700 new. It's monochrome. But it's great because it's portable and I can use it in the Cadet as my primary nav and in the Cher OH kee as a second GPS which makes navigation great. Unfortunately, the old Apollo isn't worth repairing. How could it be when I can buy a brand new 196 portable for $700?. If I were to take the Apollo to an avionics shop, they could charge me 2 or 3 hundred just to tell me it aint worth fixing. So, mechanic Dan advised me to get a used unit and slide it in. So I told my wife, who is the E-Bay expert. She started bidding on them, and we kept getting outbid. But the other day we got the bid on one. It arrived today. Will it slide in and work? I hope so. First nice day we'll find out. I've got to dig through my allen wrench collection and find that really tiny tool that is the key to swapping units. Now, as long as nothin' else breaks...