I am sitting here on the last day of my trip to NH (from AZ) to see the grandkids.  Two weeks ago I got the XM radio in-flight weather solution called WxWorx.

What a sweet deal for serious IFR travel.  On the way to NH I encountered widely scattered, very light to moderate rain showers and a lot of IFR conditions between St. Louis and Portsmouth.  It was simple to use the near real time NEXRAD images to remain well clear of showers when they were widely scattered or to pick out the very lightest when there was no alternative.  The depiction is about 2 km resolution, so it is easy to stay clear of the bad stuff.  I always had a plan formulated for weather avoidance well before the center controller offered one and my info was better.

This equipment cost ~$1400 and includes the WxWorx and GPS receivers, the satellite antenna, and all the power supplies/chargers for A/C and D/C use. Both are bluetooth, so there are no cables to the display device, only to power.  WxWorx receiver and GPS units that connect to the display device via USB are several hundred dollars cheaper.  The GPS is not required, but a moving map depiction of you and the weather is really helpful.  The software can take NMEA input from almost any GPS source, portable or panel mount.  I specifically wanted the bluetooth to cut down on cockpit cables.  Display is to any Windows Computer.  Mine is a Tablet PC.  I bought WxWorx from DAC International (a distributor for XM).  The only problem has been the DC-DC converter that powers the WxWorx receiver.  It kept tripping the A/C breaker, so I replaced it with a Radio Shack unit recommended by XM and problem solved.  How embarrassing for them to have to recommend Radio Shack instead of their own unit!   They did give me another WxWorx receiver antenna free for my trouble though.  That was nice.

There are other suppliers, but I am pretty sure they all use the same WxWorx hardware.  The display S/W and the GPS will be different.  One of these is Anywhere Map (for PDAs and laptops).

All in all, this is a nice add-on for serious IFR and weighs less than a pound.

Tom Thibault
N4XB, "Eagle Dancer"