I've managed to get the Weather radar up on my navigation screen. Disappointing, as it cannot be put into motion like the Garmins can (which is very useful to tell if rain is moving toward, away, growing, etc). It apparently updates occasionally, but I've yet to figure out what triggers the update and how often it occurs. There is a screen that will show the date/time of the last update, but no facility to trigger an update that I've been able to find.

I believe I've seen instances where the data shown was over 20 minutes old. Data that old in a volatile weather situation makes its usefulness extremely limited - at least here in Oklahoma.

Does anyone know how often the update is supposed to occur, or even better, is there a way to manually trigger an update?

Steve

 

I know that this is an old post but did you figure it out. i will buy the module within the next two months and am curious myself.

 

Is this feature any better for 2015?

 

Unless i am doing something wrong you dont get to zoom in close enough but the radar screen will tell you if there is rain in the area. However my last two trips out i could not get it to actrivatie. Chances are i just need to reset my radio.

 

I have not found that any of the new software updates have improved the weather radar aspect at all. I still don't know of any way to cause the radar image to refresh. There seems to be no consistency at all in the frequency of refresh, which makes the image accuracy suspect at best. Couple that with the harsh resolution they've used and the radar image is virtually worthless in my opinion.

Steve

 

Pardon my ignorance. I was not aware of radar that you can get through the boom box. The one that i was referring to was through sirius

 

The weather is updated every 15 minutes. For this reason, when I am on the road and I stop for gas, I turn the ignition to AUX instead of off. If you turn it off, you will have no map data until the first update 15 minutes later. By putting the ignition to AUX, the updates continue.

 

You are right, it is through XM, via the XM module installed in the BOOM Infotainment center and the TravelLink subscription. It overlays the GPS map.

 

When I had firmware version 1.14.5, it was really nice. I could zoom way in on the map. The weather will never move because HD did not install a radio that supports the moving radar. When firmware update 1.18.0 came along, they killed the ability to zoom in to any useful level. It wasn't until 1.18.2 that they restored some of the zoom usage. Heck of a lot better now than before, but still needs more zoom capability.

Until they release a new radio capable of moving radar, it won't happen on our current systems.

 

I'll have to check my firmware version when I get home, but I believe it's the latest and greatest. I know for a fact that, when the bike was fairly new (late 2013-early 2014) that there were many instances when it was 25-30 minutes before an update would occur. Hopefully, as you've stated, they've got that squared away and it is occurring every 15 minutes now.

Previous to this Ultra Limited I owned a 2012 Goldwing. I would ABSOLUTELY NOT go back to the Goldwing, as I much prefer the Ultra. But, I have to say that the Goldwing utilized a Garmin-based GPS, which had moving, high-resolution weather radar which was incredible. Unfortunately, the lawyers had that GPS set up such that you couldn't access ANY controls while the bike was moving - not even to cancel a route. I was able to override that nonsense by installing a switch in the appropriate wire such that it *thought* it was stopped when I'd kill the signal via said switch.

All GPS' are a compromise. I just bought a brand new 2015 BMW R1200GS Adventure with BMW's extremely over-priced Garmin-based GPS (essentially a Garmin 660, but with some additional BMW-bike features). If ever you needed a working, moving radar image it would be on an adventure bike, right? Nope, they didn't include that feature, and amazingly, didn't even include XM radio capability - This in an $800 GPS unit!

While searching the files on the GPS forum I ran across one that discussed the aforementioned great GPS/radar format (on the Goldwing). According to some, Garmin decided that it was just too expensive and too much trouble to continue to include that level of radar enhancement and have therefore dropped that capability on ALL of their automotive/motorcycle GPS units. It is no doubt still available on marine and aircraft units, but we don't even want to discuss the price of those babies............

Steve