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Well, after some work with Fed Ex, I picked up my Stargazer upgrade this morning (I had it shipped to the office and we are closed today). This is about the easiest thing I have ever installed. 20 minutes tops. I mounted the antenna with the included velcro right in front of my dash pod and ran the wire underneath. and across to the master module. After that, it's just a matter of reconnecting all the wires. I played with the menus a bit. I am coming from 6.5ng and have gotten pretty used to the menus on the wide gauge over the last couple of years. I've read other reviews from people coming from single line gauges and they seem pretty used to the method of counting the times they hit the menu button to get where they need to be. For someone making that transition, it will take getting used to. But compared to 6.5ng, the menus in SG are much less cluttered. In the off mode, water temp and time are displayed on the main screen along with speed and rpm. In slalom mode, the less cluttered display is much easier to navigate by comparison to 6.5 ng, but, of course, not as intuitive as my coffee maker or TV remote. I try to think of it like r/l click on a computer mouse. There are several shortcuts built in, i.e., down arrow with slalom highlighted will get you crew weight and up arrow will get you to the slalom settings (it used to take you to skier memory, which is still available, but only really useful in classic slalom mode as the variables between two skiers have been reduced.
Here are a few shots of my antenna mount.
I got it out on the lake today and was very impressed. System locked on to the satellite within 3--4 minutes cold (I'm hoping that won't suffer when I have my bimini up, though Gary at PP said it should not be a problem). Ran my baselines (you have to do this initially to give the system something to shoot for running up to the gates, but it is supposedly not necessary to check them in the future). I was dealing with a pretty stiff wind today, but so much the better to test the system. Only had to refer to the manual once to jar my memory as to how to get to the quick calibrate screen (same as 6.5 ng). Once the baselines were set, I switched to GPS mode and ran it into some stiff breezes and and light wind rollers. Times were good (the worst it got was .03 off of actual at 36 mph). System is very smooth with no gassing. I was solo and didn't ski. Water was 54 degrees, so I'm kind of glad I didn't have the opportunity.
I also ran it around in practice mode just to see how the menu was different. Held speed well. This mode is really useful with the ability to adjust off traditional slalom times by .1 mph variables. I think this will be extremely useful for free skiing, especially since it uses the crew weight variable unlike the old straight rpm alternative to slalom mode in 6.5 and earlier PP. I'm really loving how the screen has been cleaned up.
The only other thing I had to do was adjust the clock for my time zone (menu and down arrow at the same time gets you to many settings menu. Among them is GPS settings and the skier memory).
Overall, I think the system is great. I didn't have a chance to play with speed mode, but in slalom mode it does something I've never been able to get PP to do well---hold speed in the turns. No more hand gassing required. I'm really pleased with this upgrade. Reasonably priced and a definite improvement.
Here are a few shots of my antenna mount.
I got it out on the lake today and was very impressed. System locked on to the satellite within 3--4 minutes cold (I'm hoping that won't suffer when I have my bimini up, though Gary at PP said it should not be a problem). Ran my baselines (you have to do this initially to give the system something to shoot for running up to the gates, but it is supposedly not necessary to check them in the future). I was dealing with a pretty stiff wind today, but so much the better to test the system. Only had to refer to the manual once to jar my memory as to how to get to the quick calibrate screen (same as 6.5 ng). Once the baselines were set, I switched to GPS mode and ran it into some stiff breezes and and light wind rollers. Times were good (the worst it got was .03 off of actual at 36 mph). System is very smooth with no gassing. I was solo and didn't ski. Water was 54 degrees, so I'm kind of glad I didn't have the opportunity.
I also ran it around in practice mode just to see how the menu was different. Held speed well. This mode is really useful with the ability to adjust off traditional slalom times by .1 mph variables. I think this will be extremely useful for free skiing, especially since it uses the crew weight variable unlike the old straight rpm alternative to slalom mode in 6.5 and earlier PP. I'm really loving how the screen has been cleaned up.
The only other thing I had to do was adjust the clock for my time zone (menu and down arrow at the same time gets you to many settings menu. Among them is GPS settings and the skier memory).
Overall, I think the system is great. I didn't have a chance to play with speed mode, but in slalom mode it does something I've never been able to get PP to do well---hold speed in the turns. No more hand gassing required. I'm really pleased with this upgrade. Reasonably priced and a definite improvement.
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