GPSMap 640 and Weather Data (North America)
 

This is a x-post from the ExPo GPS & Computers forum, but I thought it may be useful here also. It's only really applicable to folks in North America in the coverage area of the XM birds that provide the XMWX data.

Cheers,
Nick.

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I've used the GPSMap 478 for years, it's a great chartplotting GPS I've used it all over the world. The new GPSMap 640 looked like its obvious replacement.

I subscribe to the XM WX weather service. It's a little pricey (I have the "sailor" package), but we're out and about a lot in CO & UT so it's worth having. It gives me "technical" weather data, NEXRAD radar, surface analysis, and some other stuff so I can interpret the raw data and make decisions about the weather myself. Given the quality of the road data in the US, I'm in "road mode" 95% of the time.

So, you'll realize that I was disappointed to read that apparently the XM XW service only works in marine mode on the GPSMap 640. I contacted Garmin to clarify this and this is the response I got, on 20090512:


So there's the official word from Garmin - in automotive mode all you get is City Forecasts. That's a bit naff. Anyway, I've requested an enhancement to get the full WX data available in automotive mode. Maybe it'll make a difference...

Nick.