Garmin Rino 530 14-Mile 22-Channel Waterproof FRS/GMRS Two-Way Radio and GPS Navigator

by Garmin

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 2 x 2 x 8 inches ; 10.2 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 4 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B000ASBKLA
• Item model number: 010-00392-01
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

No matter where your outdoor activities take you, the Garmin Rino 530 GPS-Integrated FRS/GMRS two-way radio is designed to keep hikers and climbers on track and in touch. This rugged, two-way radio with GPS packs a bold color display, 12-mile communication range, and turn-by-turn directions,

The "Radio Page" displays two-way radio status and GPS signal strength.

The "Compass Page" displays basic navigational info.

giving you peace of mind in the great outdoors. The Rino 530 also features an electronic compass, barometric altimeter, and NOAA weather receiver.

The Rino's position-reporting capability allows you to keep tabs on the location of family members and friends. The map also displays important waypoints and destinations.

Exclusive position-reporting capabilities and a host of other unique features make the Rino 530 one of the best all-in-one two-way radio and GPS receivers around. The position-reporting feature allows you to send and receive GPS positions with other Rino users in your group. Make one call to your partner's Rino, and your location shows up on the map page. You can even poll another Rino user's location in emergency situations.

Five watts of transmit power (GMRS) means you can now call for help from 12 miles away (transmit power is limited to two watts in Canada with a range up to eight miles). A bold color TFT display makes it easy to see and navigate to family or friends with Rinos at an amusement park, lake, or other outdoor group activity. With optional Garmin MapSource City Select software (sold separately), you can navigate safely with the assistance of automatic route generation, off-route recalculation, and icon-driven menus for finding points of interest.

A barometric altimeter provides extremely accurate elevation, an outstanding feature for serious hikers and climbers. An electronic compass is also included, and a NOAA weather receiver keeps you informed of changes in the weather.

The Rino 530 comes with a built-in detailed basemap of North and South America, and it also allows you to store up to 500 waypoints with graphic identification, as well as 50 reversible routes. The two-way radio features 10 call and ring tones, four roger tones, and vibration mode. The radio also allows you to send and receive short text notes. A calendar feature shows best hunting and fishing times, plus clock, stopwatch, and alarm functions, while a trip computer offers speed tracking, sunrise and sunset readout, trip timer, and trip distance.

A mini USB port and 56 megabytes of internal memory are included for rapid download and plenty of map storage of Garmin's entire line of outdoor cartography. Also included is a rechargeable internal lithium-ion battery that provides up to 16 hours of outdoor use.

What's in the Box
Rino 530 receiver, Americas recreational basemap, PC/USB interface cable, wrist strap, belt clip, lithium-ion battery pack and charger, A/C adapter cable, quick start guide, and owner's manual.

Product Description

No matter where your outdoor activities take you, the Rino 530 keeps you on track and in touch. Similar to the 520, this rugged, two-way radio with GPS packs a bold color display, 12-mile communication range, and turn-by-turn directions ¿ giving you peace of mind in the great outdoors. Taking it a step further, the Rino 530 adds an electronic compass, barometric altimeter, and NOAA weather receiver, making it a favorite with hikers and climbers. As with other members of the Rino family, the 530's patented location-reporting feature allows you to send and receive GPS positions with other Rino users in your group. One call to your partner's Rino, and your location shows up on the map page. You can even poll another Rino user's location in emergency situations. Additional 530 features include: Whopping 5 watts of transmit power (transmit power limited to 2 watts in Canada with a range up to 8 miles). Bold color TFT display makes it easy to see and navigate to family or friends with Rinos at an amusement park, lake, or other outdoor group activity. Automatic route generation, off-route recalculation, turn-by-turn directions with alert tones, and icon-driven menus for finding points of interest (when combined with Garmin's optional MapSource City Select software) navigate you safely to your next outdoor adventure. Mini USB and 56 megabytes of internal memory for rapid download and lots of map storage of Garmin's entire line of outdoor cartography. Rechargeable internal lithium-ion battery for up to 16 hours of outdoor use. Barometric altimeter provides extremely accurate elevation for hikers and climbers. Electronic compass so you can get a heading when standing still. NOAA weather capability to keep you informed of changes in weather. The Rino 530 comes with a built-in detailed basemap of North and South America. Customize map data for your adventures on land or sea with Garmin's entire line of optional outdoor cartography.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

70 of 72 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Don't buy until they fix the firmware, February 27, 2006

By 

Andrew Crabtree (Sacramento, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Garmin Rino 530 14-Mile 22-Channel Waterproof FRS/GMRS Two-Way Radio and GPS Navigator (Electronics)

This review covers the version 2.20 firmware released Nov 22 2005 and still current as of today (2/27/06).

I already owned a RINO 130 which I was mostly happy with, and my wife bought me the 530 as an upgrade. My biggest complaints about the 130 were the serial download and the lack of auto-routing. The 530 was supposed to fix both of those and then some (plus color!), so I was very optimistic. The product, with firmware 2.2, is however a complete disaster.

So - the good things first off. The USB interface works great. The original 100 series of RINOs should have never been released with serial interfaces, so it is nice that they finally fixed it. It used to take 1 hour 20 minutes to download a mapset to the 130 (24MB), and I can do 50MB to the 530 in a couple of minutes. Also very nice is that you can overlay maps (MetroGuide and Topo for instance) and select between then. On the older 130 you would have to replace them over the serial port which was a huge nuisance. The color screen is really much nicer than the monochrome LCD. And the Li Battery pack is nice, although for me it means I have to buy the AA pack because I intend to use it for weeklong trips without recharging. The walkie-talkie range is much improved over the original. Still nowhere near the claims, but improved. Also good, and unexpected, is the GPS works much better. The old unit had to be windshielf mounted in a car, this one works in your lap in the front seat.

And now - why you shouldn't even consider buying it until a new firmware comes out ....

1) Screen redraw problems? Yep. Lockups requiring the battery to be removed? Yep. Crashes requiring a power cycle? You bet. On a 4 hour week last saturday I noticed that approximately 15% of the time I hit the "push-to-talk" button it would cause the screen to blank out completely. The buttons still made proper noises, and the walkie-talkie would still send and receive, but the display showed nothing. That meant ~20 times I had to power cycle the device to get the display back, on a single afternoon hike. This is all kinds of unacceptable. Trying to find addresses or intersections on it would result in the device hanging indefinately with all buttons non-responsive. And often times the GPS screen would just refuse to redraw (everything else would work, and all other screens, just no map).

2) Auto-routing. Where to start with this? This is worse than useless, as it actually breaks functionality that worked on the Rino 130 (namely, you could use your PC to calculate a route and download it). There are so many things wrong here. My *belief* is that the 530 unit, regardless of what maps you have downloaded to it, will only routefind with its built in mapset, which only has major highways. So you will never get directions that include specific streets of freeway exits. Even better - the algorithm to routefind appears to be "find nearest freeway and direct person to that freeway as the crow flys". So if you are 5 miles south of your target, and the nearest freeway is 10 miles north of your target, it will advise you to "drive 15 miles north to freeway". You can be 10 feet away from your target and it will still send you to a freeway. Fine, no problem I thought. I will just download a route from my computer onto it. WRONG. As soon as you try to activate a route it immediately attempts to recalculate it, and you end up with either a) no route at all and just an arrow pointing you towards your target or b) the same horrible highway only routes which have a tendency to take you 2x the distance you need. Not a problem with the "optimize for time or distance" either, I went through every combination of options for routing.

Bug reports to garmin over the issues have so far gone unreturned, so garmin's customer service isn't exactly recommended either.

I'll post a new review of any furthur firmware revisions.

73 of 78 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not Ready For Market, November 22, 2005

By 

Dr. J. A. Walls - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Garmin Rino 530 14-Mile 22-Channel Waterproof FRS/GMRS Two-Way Radio and GPS Navigator (Electronics)

My recently acquired RINO 530 unit frequently locks up when in use in the field. Sometimes I can use the power button to reset it, but other times I have to remove the battery to get it to reset. If you are relying on this to keep in emergency contact with other hunters and/or hikers, be prepared to check it frequently, as when it locks up, the radio also ceases to operate. I notice from other reviews of RINOs (eg the 130) that this is a family problem.

Another more serious design flaw is that the antenna has already worked loose after just 4 days of use in the field. Perhaps this is because I used it to pull the unit out of my pocket (but given the size of the 530 with it Li-ion brick pack, that's about the only way to get it out). The antenna (actually the rubber cover) is merely glued to the top of the unit, and as the antenna flexes under normal use, its just a matter of time before it will come off. There are few glues that can stick to flexible rubber well, and this is not one of them. This clearly does not live up to the 'ruggedness' claims in Garmin's specs.

I liked the features this unit offers; great color display (with day and night settings changing at sundown to aid visibility), great battery life (never a strong point for its etrex models), and a powerful radio. Also, it's very fast at acquiring satellite signals by virtue of it's 2D -> 3D mode transitional lock; something my eTrex Legend had been very slow to do. However, given the two problems noted above, I must return this to the manufacturer and wait for a better offering. That's a shame as Garmin have cornered the market for integrated radio/GPS devices, so I can only hope they get this ready for market before the next season is upon us.

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Frustrating, February 28, 2007

By 

Maxwell (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Garmin Rino 530 14-Mile 22-Channel Waterproof FRS/GMRS Two-Way Radio and GPS Navigator (Electronics)

Let me start by saying I was excited to get this product for an upcoming ski outing where four of us including two children were going. I imagined myself able to locate the kids when we tried to meet up, or find them if we got lost (or god forbid worse). I bought two from Amazon and bought two more from a local retailer while waiting for the Amazon order to arrive. I took my girlfriend's niece out for a practice run to see how they all worked...five minutes later mine locked up. I went and found my niece..."Uncle XXXX, why does the screen look all funny" The units from the local retailer had a problem with the screen locking up...so I exchanged them, but then, so did the two I got in exchange. I thought perhaps I got a bad batch from the local store, but when the Amazon units arrived, they had the same problem. We took them out for a stroll with some friends from MBA school...the unanimous opinion after a few minutes of test use by late 20 year old and early 30s self proclaimed gear lovers..."dude, these %&#!".

Forget, locating the people in your party, even if all your friends are incredibly patient geeks. (I should know, I was so excited when I ordered the radios that I applied immediately for a GMRS license with the FCC). The Rino 530's simply don't work well. A combined GPS and family radio seems like such a great concept for a product, but at $400 a unit, they are pathetic. $1600 for four units bought me disappointment, frustration, trips to the store and time on the phone with customer service agents who act surprised that there is a problem. Frankly, the GPS is useless because the screen flips out every seven minutes. You have to stop, remove the belt clip and take the battery off the back and reboot...then it happens all over again a few minutes later. The product becomes a real distraction instead of an enhancement to your outdoor activity...You wind up thinking how great it was when you had $20 radios that worked.

I spoke with three Garmin reps who denied they knew of any problem, one told me it was a complicated piece of equipment and occasional crashes were to be expected. Every seven minutes? Come on, Windows 95 was more stable than that. Finally, I got a guy on the phone who said, "Oh yeah, there's a problem with the 530's, you should avail yourself of the local return policy if you can. If not we can send you some more, but I can't make any promises." He explained that they are having an issue with the electric signal to the LCD and said they are trying to develop a firmware solution. Reading the other reviews, I'd guess they've been unsuccessfully working on one for more than a year now...and through multiple software releases. I am not holding my breath for working a firmware repair.

I've certainly bought products that had bugs and got better with firmware releases (Linksys routers for instance, Palm Treo's) but this is no $50 router, (or generally stable $400 phone) and frankly, I have to reset my router once every four months at most. This product is really bad, I wish it were better because the concept is great, but I would strongly urge anyone considering this purchase to keep your money and save yourself the headache.