Connecting Garmin 196 to FSX

[Electroman]

Hi All,

I have recently purchased a Garmin 196 GPS for real world aviation and also want to get this setup and connected for my flight simming.

I have looked through some of the forum entries here and read some of the details but cannot seem to get this hooked up and working. I'm hoping one of the members out there can provide me on some guidance.

My setup as follows:

Garmin 196 GPS

Set GPS to Simulator Mode

Interface set to Aviation In (No place to set baud rate here - just Aviation in)

USB to Serial port adapter - set to 9600, 8, N, 1 (also tried 4800, 8, N, 1)

FSX - FSUIPC 4.52 installed and registered

FSUIPC - Checkbox enabled for GPSOut, set port to COM4 (my USB to Serial adapter port)

FSUIPC Settings - Not sure what should be checked / unchecked here for this GPS as there are about 12 different checkboxes and I'm not sure? I do have AV400 selected and also checked most if not all the boxes.

I'm trying to get this to work with my laptop which does not have a standard COM port, hence the USB to serial adapter but I do know that this works connecting to the GPS in general because I just did a firmware and map update to it via this method without any problems.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Cheers!

Darryl Brambilla

[Pete Dowson]

Interface set to Aviation In (No place to set baud rate here - just Aviation in)

USB to Serial port adapter - set to 9600, 8, N, 1 (also tried 4800, 8, N, 1)

The settings in the driver are only defaults. Each application sets its own. You need to set the correct speed in the FSUIPC GPSout tab. If the speed is not specified by Garmin, the default for NMEA format is 4800. I don't know if there is one for Aviation format, but try 4800 first.

FSUIPC Settings - Not sure what should be checked / unchecked here for this GPS as there are about 12 different checkboxes and I'm not sure? I do have AV400 selected and also checked most if not all the boxes.

Don't check ANY of the other sentence selections if you select AV400 -- Aviation format is NOT the same as NMEA, and most of the other selections there are NMEA. If your GPS uses Aviation format, that's all it will take, not a mixture.

I'm trying to get this to work with my laptop which does not have a standard COM port, hence the USB to serial adapter but I do know that this works connecting to the GPS in general because I just did a firmware and map update to it via this method without any problems.

That implies that you have some software installed to talk to the unit over the USB/Serial link. Do you have to specify COM4 to that each time you use it, too? I ask because the software might be installing an "activesync" type of link which will effectively "own" the COM4 link to your Garmin and prevent GPSout getting to it. I know this happens with true USB devices.

Anyway, if you search this forum for "Garmin 196" references you will certainly see that several folks have it working fine, with the AV400 format (only).

Regards

Pete

[Electroman]

Hi Pete!

Just thought I'd give everyone a quick update after I read your reply! You hit the nail on the head when you mentioned the NMEA / AV400 issue and the checkboxes.

I went back to the FSUIPC GPSOut settings and unchecked ALL BOXES and then left only the AV400 box checked. Then also ensured that my Garmin Interface mode was set to Aviation In and started up FSX. BANG - She works!

Thanks again for the help - now to play :D

Cheers!

Darryl Brambilla