Zaon XRX

Anybody else using this little gem?
I bought one about 4 months ago after a "near" miss leaving Columbia, CA.
Had a little trouble hooking up with ATC/flight following after departure.
When I finally got them on frequency the first thing they said was "traffic 2 miles, 2 Oclock, your altitude. Expedite decent". I happily obliged and watched the Cessna pass a couple of hundred feet directly overhead.
Bought the XRX shortly thereafter. It is a gem! Works great. Appears to spot the vast majority of traffic. The directionality is good though not perfect. Altitude very accurate. A HUGE aid in providing awareness of local traffic. I may get one for the car too...for those occasional pesky emergency freeway landers.

S_tones

Anyone have this unit installed in an -4 or -8. I'd like to see where you put it.

Thanks for the review. I plan on picking one up in the next year or so.

Sid Lambert said:

Anyone have this unit installed in an -4 or -8. I'd like to see where you put it.

Thanks for the review. I plan on picking one up in the next year or so.

Click to expand...

I cannot reply to where to mount in a -4 or -8 but I would like to comment on the use of this equipment. I bought the XRX at Sun' N Fun this year even though my 9A is not flying yet. I put it in my C172 and plugged it into the Garmin 496 that I also picked up at SNF.

I have to say it works pretty darn well! Sometimes too well. I have flown several times since April with other friends to destinations together. While flying in close proximity to them (anywhere from 1/2 mile away to 2-3 miles away) the unit would repeatedly blare out that there was "Traffic, monitor closing rate!" over and over. Although I understand the issue of needing to have this message repeat while the other aircrafts are close, it is still very annoying to have that voice repeating this message rather loudly to the point it drowns out everything else coming through the headset.

I have temporarily been able to mute out the audio by switching my stereo/mono headset to mono. This allows for the silencing of this warning but I do not like the idea that I have to do this. I think the audio warning is the best feature of this unit. You need to be looking out the window not at the unit display. By having the audio warning come over the headsets while looking out you can quickly identify traffic.

For the most part it works very well in this respect. I have already had the unit direct me to traffic at my 5 o'clock climbing toward me that I would have not noticed at all without it. This is the type of situation that it excels in. I just wish there was a way to control the audio better when you have spotted the traffic it warned you about and have already dealt with it.

I have an MRX not an XRX. Last night while flying some holds and arcs with my instructor in a C172 it went off several times.

After about the fourth or fifth warning/alert my instructor said, "It seems like I have more close traffic with you than any other student I have." He then went on to say "That Zaon really is useful, I wonder how many close aircraft I have with other students that I don't know about?"

price check on aisle 3

Hello,

Does anyone know the best (cheapest) place to buy the XRX?

Thanks,

Tim

Looking for next version...

My problem with the XRX it's huge when you put it on the glareshield. A panel mount version with a remote antenna is the way to go. Or better yet, just an antenna and a hidden control box and just send signal to your Garmin 430/530/396/496.

It looked like they were going to do something along these lines awhile back (http://www.zaon.aero/content/view/44/46/), but this is over a year old now and still no product yet. Maybe we'll see something in two weeks at OSH.

Unfortunately, there are no plans for a panel mounted XRX (formerly known as XRXi, for installed). The primary reason for this is pricing. One of the key selling points of Zaon PCAS system is their price point. With the additional components required for an installed solution plus the cost of installation, the ending price tag would likely be acceptable to a very small margin of pilots.

The XRX displayed on a GPS provides a very cost effective collision avoidance implementation while utilizing only portable devices.

The other reason is that Zaon is working quite agressively on a portable ADS-B device that will be an add-on to current the XRX that will add TIS-B in ADS-B service areas while still maintaining traditional XRX traffic in non-ADS-B areas. I wrote about this in my most recent 'Close Calls' column.

Anthony