A Geek's Dream Come True

They Did What?

When I read that Garmin had taken their already famous, well made GPS units and combined them with FRS and GMRS radios to make the RINO series I began to drool. Add GMRS repeater capabilities and a color backlit screen and I was no longer drooling, I was BUYING.

It Seems Practical For Me Because-

I'm an amateur radio operator, communications engineer and a GMRS licensee and repeater owner. A good GPS has long been a needed tool in my particular trade. Often I'll be driving to new territory, tracking down radio interference or helping strangers in the sticks with their radio equipment. Having loose printouts of Mapquest all over the car wasn't helping me. Also, I monitor my GMRS repeater 24/7 and keep a radio on my hip at all times. Why not buy the RINO and have one device that does it all? I thought. And so I did.

First Impressions

Out of the box, The Rino 530 had a very rugged, well constructed feel. I'm anti-owners manual, especially the first day of ownership, so the quick start guide was just what I needed to get going with the unit. I found though, that the RINO 530 is set up very much like a PC using menus and icons, and was super simple to operate. Once you get the feel of this you can also customize which screens and features are easily accessible on the unit with a single button. The screen is well backlit if you choose, and the color scheme can be optimized for maximum legibility in any light. I found it easily viewable in all conditions. At first, the GPS was a little lacking with the included base map. After asking around though I found that is typical for GPS basemaps. You get a very dulled down map. Just major highways/roads and bodies of water. The highway exit information was still very helpful though, as it guided me to a branch of my bank over 40 miles away...when I went out of state.

More on the GPS

I uploaded City Navigator mapping software and the difference was extraordinary! Now I could find addresses, resturaunts, shopping malls,...well you name it! Maybe it's just the software I have or the way I set the unit up but the auto routing of the unit, which is supposed to give you directions, can only get you close using highways and major roads. After that the rest is up to you. Which really isn't hard if you can read a map. I heard that the routing capabilites vary depending on the software you are using. Garmin has many different ones. With City Navigator the unit still shows the destination waypoint and streets that go there. All in all, I found the GPS portion of the unit to be excellent in reception, functionality and features. Especially for a hand held unit. The small center joystick control, which performs the duty of a mouse on the menus and icons is not the easiest to operate while driving. After some use though you'll find that you instinctively
are able to remember the amount of taps left, right, up, down, and in to get what you need. On such an a small unit I really wouldn't know how to make it much easier to navigate the menus to such a feature rich device.

The Radio

Now, onto the radio...Repeater channels!!! Such an IMPORTANT FEATURE! Why you ask? What's a repeater? If you are licensed for GMRS, which is easy to do through the FCC's website, you can set up a repeater on specific repeater channels. Repeaters sit up high on mountain tops or buildings and listen on a channel for your walkie talkie or low powered radio (such as the RINO) When you transmit they take your signal and send it back out with up to 50 watts of power behind it...which in my situation gives me the ability to talk to friends 40 miles away with ease! No need to struggle with wimpy FRS radios to get 5 miles of range. (if you're lucky) So yes, the RINO 530 can do repeater channels, and that's a wonderful thing. The radio itself is awesome. Everything is menu adjusted including the volume and squelch, which I love because I'm a tech head but that might annoy some deer hunter trying to be quiet in the woods when a radio call comes in. It takes considerable time to get in there and change the volume and things. Scramble mode works well for some privacy,and I found it's compatible with other scramble capable radios such as the Kenwood TK-3131, although your voice might sound slightly off in pitch but fully intelligible. Rino to Rino it works flawlessly. Scanning is fantastic. The radio automatically stops on activity and displays the privacy code of people talking. Not even my expensive ham gear does it this fast! For those not familiar those codes (PL Tones) keep the other party from hearing outside traffic without the same code. Without the code you can't reach those strangers you'd like to talk to in an emergency or just a social situation, so that's a valuable feature. The NOAA Weather radio receives well and the weather alert feature works regardless of you using the radio if you desire. With selectable power up to 5 watts this radio is a POWERHOUSE, especially if you can hit a repeater because most require 1/2 to 1 watt to reach them. Simplex (radio to radio) range for me was about 6 miles give or take. The peer to peer stuff in addition to all the other bells and whistles makes it THE best GMRS radio I've ever owned. Unfortunately though, I found the peer to peer positioning feature...the big selling point of the RINO series, DOES NOT WORK ON REPEATER CHANNELS! This restricts the peer to peer to just a mere 5 miles or so, which seems so very stupid and pointless. Rounding up the family at the mall is a nice use, but what about keeping track of a fleet of vehicles or something important? Guess people will need to tell Garmin they want this...I already did ;)

The Battery/Accessories

The included Lithium Ion Battery is simply incredible on this radio. I own many portable radios and never have I seen a battery last two days or more with regular transmitting/receiving cycles. Usually after 2 days my battery is still above 25%, so I still have yet to run it down completely. Turning off the backlighting obviously has dramatic effect on battery life. I also made the purchase of the Rino earbud with PTT for easier mobile operation. I must say that while the radio's microphone audio sounds clearer with this (probably because of waterproofing materials over the stock microphone) the ergonomics of the headset are just plain stupid. The PTT button and microphone are mounted together on a tiny plastic thing that dangles at about waist level. Since the PTT is right beside the mic you get swishy sounds because your fingers constantly brush the microphone. It's also no more comfortable to hold this tiny thing up to my mouth then holding the whole radio while driving. DON'T BUY THIS HEADSET! I'm going to dismantle and redesign the thing much like a cellphone earbud, with the microphone right under my chin and the PTT at arms length.

In Summary-

To summarize, this radio is for someone like me. I needed a GPS that was handy and functional but not necessarily top of the line. I needed a radio that could access repeaters and have selectable power and not a dedicated $400 commercial business radio. In both categories, radio and GPS the RINO 530 met and exceeded my expectations on features, performance and reliability. There's tons more to be said about this thing but it would take me endless hours of company time to explain. Might want to try one for yourself.

In Closing...

This device is truly a dream come true for the geeky radio/GPS lover or the tough as nails outdoorsman. I highly recommend this unit for the recreational radio/GPS user.

Helpful Hint: Another reviewer here mentioned that the Rino 530 can display external ambient temperature, he said he could not find how to do it in the manual (neither could I) and said he contacted Garmin support who told him how to get The Rino 530 to do it. He did not say how he finally did!! So I contacted Garmin and this is what you do: Go to a screen with data fields, such as the Compass. Move the cursor to any data field and tap the joystick center. A dropdown menu is displayed, showing all the possible data fields. Select Temperature. DONE!