I have a Garmin 396 connected to my Garmin 430 -- the 396 picks up the current flight plan from the 430. If I purchase a XRX, can I continue to get the Flight Plan along with traffic?

Paul Earley

Paul,
I am not familiar with the interface format necessary to do a data transfer between your 430 and 396. I suspect that the traffic format of “TIS In” would be incompatible with the format you’re using to share data between the two GPS units. Perhaps someone with Zaon tech support would be able to offer more definitive information.
DKM

The simple answer is no, since the 396 technically only has 1 serial port, and that is being used to get information from your 430. Of course, the port is bi-directional, so if you were sending information from the 396 to, say, an autopilot, you could still use the incoming side of the port for XRX data. We are looking into the possibility of using a different data type that may support overlaying two or more different data streams, but we do not have an answer on this as yet.

If it would help in the decision to implement this, I would purchase today if I could get flight plan AND Traffic into the Garmin 396 at the same time. I just hate to give up the flight plan info coming in.
Paul Earley

I have heard of customers using an A/B switch to facilitate this. You could set it to A to uplink your flight plan, then switch to B for the duration of the flight. I cannot provide confirmation that this works, but after studying the interface, there is no reason why it shouldn't.

You could also use a serial interface hub that negotiates more than one RS232 input to a single output. I use them in my communications business but have never used one in the cockpit. I imagine this would work too.