Windows7 Anyone?

[windward54]

I was wondering if anyone has tried Windows7 with Airmail2000 yet?

I'm currently running Vista with Airmail2000, and have a love/hate relationship. I've gotten use to most of the quirks of Vista, but there was one issue I've not been able to resolve. When feeding the GPS information from the radio to the modem to the computer, the radio hangs in the remote setting. The only way to get the radio back to regular operation, is to turn the radio off and back on. The only fix I found was to use a GPS USB dongle in place of the modem-fed GPS signal. I was hoping that this problem would go away with Windows7.

 

[windward54]

OK, guess I’ll have to be the Guinea pig for this! I upgraded to Windows 7 and gave it a try. The performance of the software was unaffected by the upgrade. I still have the modem sticking the radio in the remote setting when using the GPS feed through the modem. The only way to free the radio up to the manual mode is to turn my radio off then back on. According to Jim Corenman, the author of the software, this is an issue that came up with Vista, even though the latest version of Airmail2000 is supposed to be compatible. Good news is Airmail2000 use to freeze periodically in Vista; this does not seem to be the case with Windows 7. I have yet to experience a software freeze-up. And everything seems to be a step faster with Windows 7. The only issue I have was my Bluetooth software was not compatible. However, I downloaded a driver for it, and it now appears to be working. I’ll find out next time I’m on the boat, as my only Bluetooth device is the Pactor modem

Bottom line, I’ll use the fix that I came up on for the GPS issue. I use a Canmore USB GPS dongle, which has a self-contained battery charged through the USB port. There are some good side benefits to doing this way. First, I don’t have the radio sticking in remote. Second, I don’t have to turn on the Raymarine chartplotter just to get a position fix so I save battery power and third, the GPS unit is an AGPS. Assisted GPS units lock on in about 5 to 10 seconds provided you haven’t shifted your position more than 500 miles from the last time you used the unit. That is a great lock time for a fix, and this unit even works down below, though a little slower of the fix time than if exposed to the open sky.

A final advantage for the dongle is it is a great GPS backup system. Most dongles are compatible with every mapping software package out there. If that is the case, you have a back up if your chartplotter fails.

Finally, if you want to use the software, and don't want to be troubled with the radio freezing in the remote function, you can turn off the automatic position reporting. This will also cure the issue. And keep in mind that I don't know if this issue comes up with other equipment. I'm using an ICOM M802 with a Pactor II-ubs modem with a Pactor III upgrade.