Steve Kroop <<info>> writes:

I am pleased to announce that there will be a significant firmware update
for the 6030 very soon.  It is being tested at the January HG comps in OZ and PWC comp in Columbia. If there are no significant bugs reported that cannot be quickly fixed we expect to release it at the end of this month.

• Optimized route: With this new function the 6030 will calculate the shortest path around the Competition Route. If you get off course line as you fly the task, the instrument will recalculate the new optimal cylinder intercepts. Navigation is to these optimal incepts and not the turnpoint center.  In the case of a goal cylinder, final glide numbers are relative to the goal cylinder boundary and not the center.  The optimized course line and optimal cylinder intercepts (marked as C-Wp) are visible on the map page.


• Distance to optimized waypoint: New User-field Dist Opt WP displays your distance to the next turnpoint's optimal intercept.  The distance to the waypoint's center is still shown in the user-field Dist to WP.


• Goal line finish: When selecting the goal waypoint in the Competition Route, you can now choose between a cylinder or line finish. The map page shows the selected finish drawn at the finish waypoint. The turn point reached sound is given when you cross the line.


• Course-up map page: The map page can be set to display either north up (as it is now) or course up.


• Speed to start cylinder: New user-field Spd StCyl displays the ground speed required to get to the start circle boundary for an on-time start.


• Nascent/near thermal tone: This is a steady tone with a little vibrato that indicates lift that is not quite strong enough to trigger the ascent tone but may deserve investigation when finding a source of lift is critical.  This can be useful when searching for lift just outside of an established thermal or in a thermal that has not fully formed yet. The window of this tone is from the normal ascent tone threshold down to a user preset limit (e.g., 8 ft/min to -60 ft/min).  The frequency of the tone starts at the frequency of the normal vario tone the frequency decreases as your sink rate increases, down to the limit set in the settings menu.


• NMEA output over Bluetooth;  This can be used to connect the 6030 to 3rd party devices.

Significant upgrade to the 6015 coming soon too.  Stay tuned for details on that upgrade :-)