Garmin GPSMap 296

October 20, 2009

It's got a smaller screen than the AvMap, it's more expensive than some similar GPS units, it lacks some of the bells and whistles of the latest systems, it's bigger and clumsier than the PDA based systems. So why would you buy the GPSmap 296?

It's a tried and tested unit, from a tried and tested family. The interface is good and the company has a great reputation. Does the unit live up to expectations?

Delivery, Versions & Installation

The box is bigger the Ben Hur. I couldn't believe that a little GPS needs a box like that! So what's in the box:

GPSmap 296;
Adjustable Yoke Mount;
USB PC interface cable;
AC power pack;
DC 12 volt power pack;
Adjustable flat surface mounting cradle with two lots of double sided mounting pads;
User manual, quick start guide, software and driver CD;
Warranty card and a coupon to upgrade the Jeppesen database to the latest version.

Features

The GPSmap 296 is a colour GPS and is primarily designed for aviation use but it actually has 3 modes:

Aviation;
Marine;
Road

I'm not going to dwell on anything but the aviation mode. Suffice to say that as a sailor I'd be happy to have the unit along on a sailing trip.

Out of the box the unit comes with a base map and an aviation database. This is the first place where you need to take care. The base map comes permanently burned onto the machine and cannot be changed. If the machine is delivered in North America it will come with an Americas base map. That's no use if you are flying in Australia and want to know what's that town down there? Nor does it help you with terrain - you'll get none.

The Jeppesen database on the other hand is entirely replaceable. If you buy it in Australia it should come with the Pacific International version of the database. In any event you can use your coupon to upgrade to whatever Jepp database you choose. Upgrades are available off the Garmin website at USD$30 per throw or USD$295 for a year's subscription with updates every 28 days. This is a use it or lose it subscription.

In aviation mode the GPSmap 296 can do all the usual things: waypoints - both from the Jepp database and user entered; routes constructed from a series of waypoints and a simple go-to capacity. You can choose a town, aviation waypoint (airport, aid, intersection...and more) and hit go to. The unit will navigate you there.

The principal screen is the moving map. You can overlay this with data and other aids to navigation. In addition you have a terrain page, a route page, a data page, location page and a panel page. This last displays data in digital or analogue form and includes an HSI.

The GPSmap 296 also records tracks flown and, using a simple algorithm, logs all flights. If you are at 500 feet and travelling at 30 knots or more you are deemed to be in flight.

Using The GPSMap 296

The best way to talk about using the unit is to work through a couple of everyday tasks. The quickest and simplest way of navigating somewhere is the press the "Nearest" button on the front case. This opens a screen that gives you the nearest of whatever type of location you want. The picture shows the airports selected. The criteria for selecting the listed airports can be set - whilst in this screen you just press the "Menu" button and the context specific menu comes up. This is a feature of all screens. In addition pressing Menu twice at any time takes you to the main menu. I find the Nearest page incredibly useful for things like what's the frequency for Mangalore and do I have to call yet? One press of the Nearest button tells me that the frequency for Mangalore CTAF is 121.1 and that it's too early to call yet.

Highlighting any airport in the list (using the Cursor key) and pressing "Enter" gives further information about that airport - a mini-ERSA style entry, including the available approaches (NDB, RNAV...). Pressing Enter once more, when you are in the airport info page, initiates a GoTo for that airport. The GPS will now start navigating.

In the next picture I have initiated a GoTo for Mangalore. The GPS is navigating from Shepparton to Mangalore and showing the Moving Map page. There is a raft of useful information on this page. The green wedges are runway centreline extensions allowing you to set up for those straight-in approaches! The white marked line pointing ahead from the aircraft symbol is your current track and the marks are at 1 minute intervals showing where you will be each minute for the next 5 minutes at the current rate of progress (user configurable). The magenta line is the desired course and lining up the magenta arrow head with the white arrow head means you are going where you intend to. The data fields are user configurable.

Another couple of interesting features of the moving map picture are the Puckapunyal Restricted area on the right near the 210 degree mark (hatched blue line) and the Melbourne control step at the top of the screen, joining the HSI arc at the top (pale blue line). Moving the cursor to be inside that arc gives the information that it is the 8500 foot step.

As I proceed towards Mangalore it's clear that my altitude of 378 feet isn't enough to keep me clear of the terrain (never mind keeping clear of CASA). So the GPSmap throws up a terrain warning. This warning is available in whatever page you happen to be at that time. The black crosses in the warning are the impact points!

Similarly the unit throws up warnings when I approach my destination and when I am approaching airspace. A pop up will tell me things like Airspace 10 miles Ahead and an audio alarm will sound. I've found the airspace warnings very useful, however as always you should only rely on a current VNC or similar. There are errors in the depiction of the Melbourne airspace, particularly the more complex steps close north of Melbourne. An email to Jeppesen elicited the answer that there data was correct but that the 296's presentation of it could be quirky. I think that is a fair summation of the situation: the first answer around complex steps is not always the real answer and with a bit of fiddling you can generally get the real answer. The short message is carry and refer to a current chart.

Having arrived at Mangalore, and being a nice sunny day, I decide to go on to Coldstream via the Melbourne Inland VFR route. Pressing twice on the menu button from the previous screen, takes me to the Main Menu. A quick scroll with the Cursor key and I'm at the Route panel and another quick scroll and I have the Melbourne Inland route selected. Press Enter once, press Menu once and I'm ready to activate the route from Kilmore to Sugarloaf Reservoir.

You will notice in the next screenshot, in the background, that the unit is predicting that the Leg Time from Kilmore to Sugarloaf is 14 minutes. This information, together with other available information such as Leg Fuel, is calculated from information entered by the user for each aircraft that they fly. Activate an aircraft and the unit calculates speed fuel and a range of other parameters. Be careful though. This information is only available while the route is not active and the information is still air information. Once the route is activated the unit calculates time to run dynamically.

One of the important things that every pilot should do when they first get a new GPS unit is to make sure that they understand the information that they are being provided with by the unit. It is not uncommon for there to be confusion between terms like heading, track and steer. I'm sure you know what each of these means but the problem is that our North American cousins often mean something different. This is where a short sojourn with the manual and then a good play with the unit in Simulation mode will bring familiarity and understanding.

Every user also has different requirements for data on the page. As you can see I have my moving map set up to provide Speed, Distance to Next, ETE Next and Turn. I particularly like the Turn information - it tells me which way and how much I should turn the aircraft.

OK so I've activated the route and I'm tracking past the Melbourne control zone, being careful to stay under the steps. The unit provides me with good situational awareness showing the location of the control steps and other items like the Danger area at Point Cook, well away on my starboard side.

By hovering the pointer within the relevant step I get pop up information about the airspace restrictions.

In the picture I've moved the cursor until the relevant step is highlighted. I'm just crossing from the 4500 foot step into the 3500 foot step. Pressing quit clears the pop up and takes me back to the full Moving Map page.

The GPSmap 296 is a very likeable unit. The user interface is fast and intuitive. The screen re-draws in real-time without noticeable delay and there's a real bucket load of features. I've only scratched the surface so far.

The unit comes with Mapsource software for your computer. This allows you to load and download waypoints, routes and maps. The interface is simple and effective. I didn't try out the additional Mapsource mapping products. You can also download, from the Garmin website, a great little application called xImage. This allows you to load and download images to and from the unit. All the screenshots in this article were created using xImage.

The unit integrates very well with Champagne Flightplanner 3000. I loaded flight plans (Routes) very quickly from Flightplanner to the 296. My only bug is that the waypoints in the flight plan that you load are created as User waypoints even though they may already exist in the Jeppesen database.

It's hard not to like the Garmin GPSmap 296. A good user interface and heaps of features, combined with Garmin's ruggedness make it very appealing. The unit integrates (via NMEA) with the Garmin SL40 VHF to provide frequency information to the VHF for rapid tuning. It also integrates, again with NMEA, to things like autopilots and the Dynon range of EFIS. This combination is extremely powerful providing data like winds aloft.

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