Excellent comments Shawn -thank you. I'll detail my situation a bit more as others here might benefit from our dialog.
So far, my ADS-B journey has ended up very well as the FAA Rebate site tells me "the check is in the mail".
As you found on the FAA site, I have a 2008 SC, GNS430W & GTX330. The factory standard in 2008 was a Garmin 328 transponder however we had heard about ADS-B regs and 'extended squitter' so we paid a bit more for an option to get the GTX330, which is "chip up-gradable" to ES.
Because I have a GNS430W, Nav/Com it can provide "position source" to the transponder. I removed (very easy) the transponder and had my local radio guy send it off to Garmin for ES upgrade. As you noted, that was $1300 to Garmin. Got the GTX330 back and it's now a GTX330 ES with the addition of a board. So far so good.
I needed to add one serial (RS-232) line from the GNS430W to the GTX330 ES so that the transponder could use the 430 as it's position source. My radio guy created a 12 inch two wire line, with a molex connector in the center. The molex connector allowed me to "cross-over" the "out" from the GTX330ES to the "in" of the GNS430W maintaining wire color coding consistency for a future radio guy to know what's going on. By using the molex as a cross connect, the "Ins" are blue/white and the "outs" are white on both units. While only one serial data line is required, we wired two just for future capacity. Seemed like the right thing to do. I took the wire from my radio guy and took apart the SC panel myself, adding in the new serial connect between the two units. I'm an LSRM/A and love doing as much as I can myself. My radio guy was glad he didn't have to sit in the SC and doing panel wiring.
Now, having the GTX330ES "serial in" pin of the transponder wired to one of the "icarus position serial out" pins (I think that's right) of the GNS43W, we were ready to configure both units to know about each other.
Other things that had to happen:
GNS430 system software version was v3.x and GPS software also old, and it had to be brought up to 5.x for ADS-B. My local radio guy didn't have the proper update chip so l flew to another shop and had them update my GNS430W System & GPS software to 5.4 (latest from Garmin). $75 for one hour.
The config of the two units was the hardest part and I'll take a TON of pictures of the config screens for my documentation later.
Now, as you probably know, this gives me 'out' compliance only - which will meet the 2020 mandate. The FAA doesn't seem to care that I did very little work and upgraded existing systems - I'll believe it when the $500 check clears.
For "in", my plan is to continue to use my Stratus and iPad/Foreflight combination. I've used that for trips to Oshkosh from CA and other cross-country jaunts. I will likely buy a Stratus II before Osh 2018. I love traffic and weather via Foreflight and it's easier to deal with vs the 430W screen.
I'm preparing an LOA request for the factory as I expect to need one due to added wiring in the panel. From experience, if you completely write the LOA for them - you have a good chance they'll sign and return. The key is make it simple for them to help!
Thanks again for your tips & comments.
Dave
2008 SC
