Cheap Bastard FAQ:

In the interest of getting as much information as possible out to our users, we have put to together a quick FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions).  As people ask questions, or encounter problems, we will add them to the FAQ.  If you ever get tired of seeing email from the Cheap Bastards, let us know and you'll be removed from the mailing list (or course, out of spite, we'll sign you up on 100 other Spam lists).

On with the FAQ:

It seems the the whole aviation industry is a buzz with the Cheap Bastards Aviation Weather Program?  What is it and what does it do?

CBAV (as the pro's call it) is a small application that runs on your wireless Palm pilot and allows you to get real-time weather data, including nexrad radar.   Some of our features are:

• Metars and TAF's.  Enter your favorite airport ID and within seconds you will get the latest metar or TAF report.  If you're like us, you didn't pay any attention when your instructor was telling you how to decode metars.  In this day and age, why would I need to know that?  Well, dust off those Cessna flight school books, because you need to know it now.  Due to the low bandwidth of the Palm, all metars are sent coded.  Stop whining, it's not that hard.
• Tail Number Look up.  Enter the tail number of a plane and just like magic, the information is matched against an official FAA database and the owner of the plane is displayed on your screen.  We find this feature very entertaining while on long flights listening to Center.  As people check in, we look them up to see where they're from and who they are.
• Nexrad Radar.  Enter a VOR or airport near you and an up-to-date radar image of your surroundings are displayed.  Until now, information like this was for the privileged business jet or airline pilot, not for us pesky little GA planes that are gumming up the air traffic control system.

How do I get a copy of the Cheap Bastards Aviation Weather program?

You can get a copy by clicking here and filling out a small form, CBAV will be emailed to you faster then you can say "I'm sure the plane was under gross when I took off, sir".

How much does this cost?

Nothing. Just like you, we are cheap bastards and don't like to pay for anything. Just look at how we all reacted to Sen. McCain very reasonable user fee proposal.

If I really like program, can I send in a "shareware payment" to show my gratitude?

Due to popular demand (and we aren't kidding about this), you can now support CheapBastardSoftware using the Amazon.com or PayPal donation system.  Click on the link below to make a donation.

or

It is also getting expensive to keep the server running, especially as CBAV becomes more and more popular and we start using up more bandwidth, so your donation is appreciated.

And worth noting, CheapBastardSoftware does not receive any information about who made donations.

We also want to point out that there is no truth to the rumor that we will use this money to buy a Citation Jet and go for $10,000 hamburgers with Phil Boyer.

Do I need a Palm VII to run your program.

You need either a Palm VII or a Palm V with the OmniSky modem. At this time, there is no other Palm or other handheld that can run the Cheap Bastards weather app.  Palm has announced that they will have wireless modems for all the Palms in the next year, so stay tuned.  If any other Palm devices come out with wireless capabilities like the Palm VII, we will look into porting the program.  For a good comparison between the Palm VII and the Palm V with OmniSky, check this out.

But I don't have a one of the PDA's mention above, is there anything I can do?

Yes there is.  You can get the same images downloaded to the Palm by pointing any Internet enabled PDA to:

http://www.cheapbastardsoftware.com/cbav.html

I have a color PDA, can I get your images in color?

As of right now, our images are only in shades of gray.  

Is it legal to use these in your airplane?

From a FAA stand point, yes. You are the PIC and you can make the decision that any electronic device is not interfering with your flight. But, we do recommend that you not use these at critical phases of flight while in IMC (Your email can wait until after you've shot the ILS).

From the FCC stand point, from everything we can tell, yes it is OK to use your Palm VII in the air. They do not use the cell phone frequencies and all the FCC restricts for air use is a specific band of cell phones.

Please note: we are not communication attorneys (we aren't any kind of attorney), so you need to make the decision on your own. Don't even think about serving us with subpoena when you're busted, because we have a secret cabin in Canada and will be hiding out there.

When I pull down a TAF, I sometimes get two or three. Is this a bug?

No. If you get more then one TAF, it is because the NOAA has submitting more then one TAF. They are often different. Check the time very carefully. They can be only minutes off. There are times when two are submitted and they are exactly the same. I am working on a quick fix that checks to see if they are exactly the same and will only return one.

Sometimes I ask for a Metar and it comes back "not found". Now, I know the government is closing airports at an alarming rate, but I don't think my local field was closed in the last 3 hours.

Yes, evil local city government are closing airports at an alarming rate. This is why it's very important to support the AOPA. If any airport closures are detected by the AOPA, Phil Boyer and his crack team hop in their Citation Jet and fly to the scene. Phil will personally chain himself to the approach lights until the Bulldozers leave.

Thanks, but you didn't really answer my question.

Sorry, this has to do with the NOAA updating the metars/TAF around 5 or 10 minutes before the hour. They clear the database and then start feeding the data in. I had a fix for this that will just pull up last hours report, but it's (apparently) not working. I'm looking into it.

Where can I see samples of what the radar looks like on my Palm VII?

Right here.

What do all the different levels and gray scales mean on the radar?

Nexrad radar returns are presented in 6 levels, (1) light, (2) moderate, (3) heavy, (4) very heavy, (5) intense and (6) extreme. The problem is that the Palm Pilot only has 3 shades of gray with which to depict these 6 levels. 

CBAV translates these 6 "levels" into "modes". 

Mode 1 displays everything, even light precip in the lightest shade, scaling up to the extreme level in the darkest shade. Mode 6 ignores light and moderate precip, showing only the very heavy, intense and extreme levels. In between these extremes are Modes 2 through 5, which displays varying intensity levels of precip in the different shades, each higher mode showing less and less of the light to moderate precip in the slightest shade of gray.

Modes 1 through 6 do not correlate directly with Nexrad levels 1 through 6.

The best way to understand this is to bring up Nexrad color images off the Internet, select an active area of precipitation, then play with the CBAV modes on the Palm Pilot to compare to what you see on the color display.

In use, if you are not concerned with light precip, select a higher mode to get a better definition of the heavier levels of precip. If you want to see even light precip, select Mode 1. In Mode 6 you are seeing only the heaviest precipitation levels, but not light or moderate levels. In Mode 3 you will see moderate through extreme distributed over the 3 shades.  For example:

If you don't mind flying through level 1 or 2 precip, choose mode 3 and the low level stuff will not be displayed, only the higher level stuff and with better detail.  If you don't want to fly though any precip, choose mode 1.  If things are looking nasty, land.  And then when you're safe on the ground, use Mode 6 to pin-point the exact place you would have died if you'd kept flying.

How much bandwidth do radar images take?

Radar returns are 1K to 2K. No very big, but you can suck up a lot of bandwidth if you pull down too may. If you use this feature a lot (and based on the hits we're getting, you guys are radar addicts), you should think about signing up for the unlimited plan.

I've heard you can get your email on the Palm VII.

Yes, there are two ways. One is to use the email account that you can sign up for with Palm. You use the iMessanger program to send and receive email. The problem is that this is a special email account and you won't be able to read the email sent to your normal account. The best program for reading email while flying is called "Aileron". You can download it at http://corsoft.net.

Why don't you display all the registration information, like the address, when doing a N number look up?  

It just seems like too much information for whacked out strangers to have at their finger tips.

What is the coverage like at altitude?

Well, that depends on where you are.  Reports from cheap bastards on the East Coast show continuous coverage up and down the sea board at 12,000 and above.  My own personal experience on the west coast has shown 99% complete coverage from Seattle to San Francisco at 17,000.  At 12,000 I had a weak single south of Eugene until I got to Redding.  On another flight, I was at 8,000 over HQM on the Washington coast, and I had a strong signal from Seattle or Olympia and that is a good 70 miles away.

Based on the coverage maps from Palm, I suspect that signals in the middle of this great country of ours are going to be spotty.  The Palm VII uses a two way pager network that is expanding very rapidly, so I expect coverage to grow in the next year.

Please let us know where you find good service around the country and we'll do our own coverage map.

How can I get rid of the history list of radar images?  Aren't they taking up a lot of precious space?

No, the history images are not really taking up space.  They will automatically be deleted as you need more memory.  But, that said, you can delete them by using a program called CobWeb.  The problem is this program is 50K!!!  It doesn't seem worth it to me.

I have some questions that aren't in the FAQ.  What should I do?

Email them to us at sillyquestions@cheapbastardsoftware.com and will be add them to the FAQ.

Oh yeah, what's up with Patrick Swayze crashing his twin Cessna full of Booze?

The Cheap Bastards NTSB team has release it's findings on the incident and found that the alcohol was being used as a Cheap Bastards "PRIST(tm) like" anti-icing fuel additive.  We doubted this reasoning until we found that sure enough, PRIST(tm) costs much more than a cheap bottle of scotch.  We have added Mr. Swayze to our list of Celebrities that are also Cheap Bastards.