GPS Upgrade

The price dropped a little on the Garmin GPSMAP 396 recently, so I got one. So far I've been very impressed with it's abilities and features -- the XM Weather is slick! Another cool feature is the data output can drive the auto pilot as well as send frequency information to the SL30 nav/com. Nice!

Installation was a little more complicated than expected. I assumed (bad!) that the form factor of the 396 was identical to the 196 I had in the panel before. Nope - It's about 1/4" shorter, so I had to recreate the custom bracket that holds the unit in the panel.