My MLB100 was installed yesterday, and I have a grand total of one flight of about 45 minutes with it.  I also sat in the hangar for a while and played with the ADS-B In features. (I can get ADS-B on the ground at my airport. The antenna is 500 feet from my hangar.)

Based on this not-very-extensive experience, I noted the following:

I can receive and display METARS, TAFS, regional weather radar, and national weather radar on the IFD540.

I CANNOT see TFRs, pireps, special use airspace, winds aloft, and notams. All of these are available through ADS-B on my Foreflight/Stratus system. I can't see traffic either on the Avidyne, but I wasn't expecting it.

I knew that some of the weather products would not be available on the IFD540. These are documented on page 3-21 of the new IFD540 manual. But I was surprised that TFRs are not being displayed yet. I flew right by Oshkosh, where there's a big TFR for next week. It was displayed clearly on Foreflight and on a Garmin 396, but the IFD540/MLB100 had no clue of it.

Another odd thing was the display of METARS. Some were displayed in a decoded format, others were in a single-line undecoded format that didn't fit the width of the screen. You had to scroll back and forth to read them.  KOSH and KGRB were correct; KATW was undecoded. TAFS were garbled a little. Where Foreflight correctly showed a TAF reading "FM161800", the IFD540 dropped the F on several occasions, showing "M161800".

There was no thunderstorm activity in the regional radar area to display. When I zoomed out to look at US national radar, the IFD540 picture was "scarier" than the Foreflight picture. Areas that were green and yellow in Foreflight looked yellow and red on the Avidyne. And the IFD540 doesn't weave regional and national radar together, like Foreflight does. You have to select one or the other, which is a little awkward.

Does anyone else have any more experience with MLB100 ADS-B weather? I'd like to hear other's impressions of it.

When will Avidyne implement IFD540 TFRs and the rest of the ADS-B weather products?

Mike

I don't know about "any" TFRs. The TFR over Oshkosh is not active until next week. It showed up on Foreflight, so it was being sent out over the ADS-B system. It showed up on the Garmin 396, which comes from XM. And, interestingly enough, it shows up on the IFD540 iPad simulator, which displays WSI weather. That means that the IFD540 is capable of displaying TFRs (as is documented in the manual). But it doesn't show TFRs from the MLB100.

Also, when I went to the AUX -> SYS -> DATALINK page on the IFD540, it clearly showed the time since the latest radar, TAFs, and METARs were received. But there were dashes after the TFR entry. That looks to me like it's not receiving any TFRs. I would say that ADS-B was not transmitting any, but the Foreflight/Stratus system was tuned to the exact same ADS-B tower at the exact same time and it had the OSH TFR.

So what's up with that?

Mike

Thanks for the clarification.

Mike