Modernizing a legacy chaser

[Skip Talbot]

I don't want to buy a bunch of Starlink hardware only to later see them massively hike the price up after I give up my old setup and become dependent on it, which is exactly what they just did to the general aviation community. Lots of businesses do shady bait and switch like practices I'm sure, but I'll pass this time and just stick with the cell data I have. Even if it drops out every now then, I probably get my signal back before I even notice. It's good enough. Plus Starlink's CEO is human garbage.

 

[JohnHuntington]

Navigation: I was a DeLorme + yellow puck guy from when I started up until circa 2015, when I replaced my RAM Mount laptop setup with a Surface Pro 2 tablet. Starting then, I shared my smartphone's GPS location via Bluetooth and ported it into Windows via GPSGate for quite a few years... an admittedly flaky and frustrating setup. But one key mitigation technique I decided on was to have an old school Garmin GPS mounted on my windshield at all times. I still use it to this day, even though the Garmin is probably 10+ years old. Having a reliable, always zoomed-in display with no other apps or distractions dedicated to immediate situational awareness of surrounding road options is a non-negotiable for me that's worked well. Starting in 2024, I made the big leap from the Surface Pro 2 to an Android tablet that allows me to use Google Maps, but I still kept the Garmin.

Late to this thread but wanted to chime in with +1 on the old school Garmin. I use Google Maps/Waze on Android Auto a lot, but whenever I find time, I like to navigate old school on the Garmin just to maintain situational/location awareness. For this year I got a new mount that was like $20 to get it off the windshield. This unit is a few years old but they are still updating the maps--I just updated mine so it should be pretty current when I head out chasing in a couple weeks. Oh and of course I just ordered the new Rand McNally road atlas that hopefully will arrive before I head out