Least expensive GPS with weather radar ?

Hey !!
Thanks for the info ,and all the replies. (i think. :? :? )
At least i am confused differently now , than i was before...........
If i give this some more thought , say for a month or so , it will be snowing here in northeast Pa. i an won't need it for another six months or so.
In all seriousness , thanks for the info , i had been doing some searching and wasn't finding what i was looking for .
Thanks also to Fred H. , it was one of his posts ,quite a while ago , that i read about being able to spot a storm on the gps/radar , and be able to ride around it .
Seems like until this week , up here in Pa. , we have been having thunderstorms every day, or at least every other day, and many have been very heavy,(many with hail) but localized , and if you could see where they were you could avoid them .
Again , thanks for the help .
Joe

Once you ride AROUND one thunderstorm, instead of headlong INTO it, you will realize that it is worth every penny, and then some. A couple years ago I watched several folks leave Marble Falls and ride right straight into a very bad hail storm and they got home bloody and bruised from it. I wonder how much they would have paid that day to have weather radar with them?

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The weather patterns are obviously different around the country no doubt, and I am not familiar with the particular issues in Texas. Here in Ohio, not only do we have our usual thunderstorms that last for days, but we also have a fairly regular occurrence of short, severe unpredictable heat storms that spawn hail and Tornadoes. This applies to most of the Midwest, as well as most of the East Coast as well.

There is no doubt that anyone, including me, would pay $29 to avoid getting caught in the situation you mentioned. But would you pay $29 per month for the next 10 years or so just on the chance that you could avoid such a situation.

And that is part of my problem with the cost of this service. In all my years of riding, I have never actually been caught where I had to ride through anything like your friends experienced, in spite of the fact that I don't have Nexrad on my bike. I blame things like that on poor judgment and impatience more than anything else. When you are about to enter something that severe, all you have to do is look up! The sky gives many clues as to what is about to happen. I have ridden for entire days in hard rain, and have sat in sheltered areas like restaurants and gas stations waiting for storms to pass. My decision to keep riding or to stop is based on what my eyes tell me. So far, it has worked pretty well, and kept me safe.

But if an approaching storm is too big to wait it out, it is going to be too big to ride around it. And if it is small enough to ride around it, it is small enough to wait it out without altering your course, instead of dangerously riding through it. You aren't going to save any time riding around a storm instead of waiting it out, unless you planned well ahead, such as in the morning before you left. Once you are right up on a storm, it is too late to alter your plans to save time.

Nexrad on the bike has one advantage that would make it nice to have. I always check the radar maps before we leave for the day, and we alter our course if need be to avoid bad weather. Nexrad gives you the advantage of being able to monitor conditions as the day goes on to help determine if you need to further your adjustments. It can help tell you the best direction to go in. But that is a time saver, not a life saver. We are not couriers here, where time is of the essence. I leave the "through rain, sleet, and snow, the mail must go through" thinking to the post office.

Make the price reasonable, and they will have me as another customer. I think it is a great idea. But for $500 per year, or $240 for Skywatch (you have to pay for the base XM service too), I'll just wait out the next storm.

Fred H. said:

A couple years ago I watched several folks leave Marble Falls and ride right straight into a very bad hail storm and they got home bloody and bruised from it. I wonder how much they would have paid that day to have weather radar with them?

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thanks for reminding me..... Fred

One of the things i was not aware of ,(and one of the reasons for my question) was the cost of the radar service .
I have to agree , that if it requires a full year "subscription" to it , for the amount of riding i do , it might not be worth the cost .
If it was a matter of an additional $10. or so a month , added to a sattalite radio payment , it would be worth looking into it further. .
Again , thanks for the replies.
Joe.

Joe Chindemi said:

One of the things i was not aware of ,(and one of the reasons for my question) was the cost of the radar service .
I have to agree , that if it requires a full year "subscription" to it , for the amount of riding i do , it might not be worth the cost .
If it was a matter of an additional $10. or so a month , added to a sattalite radio payment , it would be worth looking into it further. .
Again , thanks for the replies.
Joe.

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You do NOT have to pay for a full year in advance. You can go month to month if you want, and you can deactivate it for up to 60 days at a time without having to pay a reactivation fee. If you can live with the 20 minute updates on the SkyWatch package, you can indeed have doppler weather radar for $10 a month. Or you can switch to Skywatch in your low usage months, and upgrade it to Sailor ($30/month) during riding season.

http://www.xmradio.com/weather/ma_service_pricing.xmc

LarryM said:

I think it is a great idea. But for $500 per year, or $240 for Skywatch (you have to pay for the base XM service too), I'll just wait out the next storm.

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Larry, I am not sure where you are getting your info from, but you DO NOT have to pay for a year in advance, and Skywatch is only $10 a month. I added XM Radio and got the "Family Package" discount for having two subcriptions, and get XM radio AND doppler weather radar for $15 a month. That isn't even close to your $500 a year number. Try $180 for both XM radio and Radar, and $120 if all you want is Skywatch radar. And in the winter time I can turn it off for a couple months when I don't need it and reduce it even further.

At most, if you subscribed to the $30 Sailor package for the whole year, it would cost $360. But smart folks will either downgrade to Skywatch during low use months, or turn it off altogether for 60 days at a time.

The real pricing info can be seen here, directly off the XM site.
http://www.xmradio.com/weather/ma_service_pricing.xmc

As to your other comments, yea you can look up and try to judge where a storm is, but Doppler lets me see where the rain is, how bad it is, where it is moving to (yes, it shows motion), and where the best point in the storm is to try to ride through it, or how far out of my way I need to go to miss it entirely. To sum it all up, it lets you make an EDUCATED decision, instead of a wild guess.

It's your money, if you don't want it, don't get it. For me, I would give up my cell phone, TV, and internet service before I would cancel my XM Radar subscription. It has saved my butt too many times, and is worth every penny it costs me. I even use it at home when the power goes out in a storm, which happens a lot around here. I take it with me in the car too, and just about anywhere I travel. I need it most when I am in an unfamiliar place, and having the GPS helps keep me from getting lost as well.

Of all the things I have bought for my bike, the 376 with radar is by FAR the most used, and useful, item I own.

[quote="Fred HOf all the things I have bought for my bike, the 376 with radar is by FAR the most used, and useful, item I own.[/quote]

I completely agree. The XM Weather service is by far the ABSOLUT BEST THING you can ever put on any bike. Don't leave home without it....

Reiner