Reply With QuoteI was wondering how long the next one would come along. Any idea of effective depth? My HB is about 25-30 metres.
Cheers,
Tim
G'day Guys,
Lowrance have released some video footage of the new side scan units that are soon to be released.
http://tr.anp.se/track?t=c&mid=28390...f-Performance/
What do you think?
Cheers
Pete
I was wondering how long the next one would come along. Any idea of effective depth? My HB is about 25-30 metres.
Cheers,
Tim
Carbon Really Ain't Pollution.
Side scan looks the goods........... If I hadn't bought my navman 8084, I would be in the queue for a side scan unit.
Cheers Garry
A bad day fishing, beats a good day at work!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I see they've now called it Structure Scan, not side scan or side imaging. Probably a trade mark issue.
I'm pretty keen on one of these or a h-bird when I fit out a new boat in the next couple of months. As a regular sounder I think Lowrance have the edge on the Hbirds as far as quality of image & less clutter. (I currently have a hbird & a couple of mates I fish with have lowrances). The broadband models look to be pretty good. Hopefully the side imaging set up is at least as good as the H-birds, if it's better that's a bonus.
What stuffs me is committing to one of these units and then be held over a barrel by lowrance when they release the side imaging kit & transducer as an option. What are we looking at cost wise ?? $500 ?, $1000 ? $5000 ??
Also wondering how it works in the menu options.
I'm still deciding on a large 10" combo or 2 smaller single units.
A question for any current users of 2 units:
What I'm thinking is 2 of the smaller 5 or 7 inch units, one a sounder with side imaging option & the other a combo, but leave it mainly in GPS mode. The way you mark a waypoint with a sideimaging looks handy. Can you mark points from the sounder now and have them automatically show up on the GPS unit now if they're networked, or can you only do that with a combo unit ?
Lowrance had side imaging back in the early 90's on the A52 {from memory}. This was prior to HB having it on their units if my recollection serves me correctly.
They were only sold for a year or two as they weren't very popular back then.
For anyone elses interest. (I'm surprised no one here has networked 2 units).
I couldn't get any answers to the above questions from 3 different local retailers I spoke to. Most don't even know they can be linked together. That was a waste of driving around last week. So back home it was. In a couple of hours research and reading the manuals for a few of the models from the lowrance site I knew more about them then they did. It amuses me that retailers want the sales but they don't do themselves any favours. Their staff know jack schitt about their products.
I don't mind shopping somewhere when I get backup and advice, but getting dumb looks is not what I went looking for. I have 3 teenage kids, I can get that treatment for free at home. lol.
Still confused about a couple of things even from the manuals so I rung the Lowrance tech dept of Friday.
They said it is possible for a waypoint to be entered in via a sounder/combo and then show up on the separate GPS unit when networked. Although the 7" is not available in a sounder only like the 5" models. One would have to be a combo. They were pretty helpful. We nutted out a few options & what's required to set them up. in 5", 7" or 10.
With a budget of 'around' $4000 for sounder/gps, 2 x 7" combos linked together seems ideal, both for viewing size and give a good back up if one dropped dead & was sent away...Run one as the GPS and the other as a sounder. Both will do either job if need be by swapping over the transducer cable. A 10" single combo is also on the cards. The screen on those is awesome, but I've always been against having one single unit.
Also spoke to the sales manager. The structurescan with be released at the Sydney boat show at the end of this mth (30 july to 3rd Aug). When quizzed on pricing, he was non committal, but said the cost is a transducer only as the software required is a free update. He said he wouldn't expect the transducer to be more than 3 or $400. This seem fair. Will wait & see.
Hi Dicko,
The points you raise are pretty spot on. A big disadvantage with the big screen combo units is when the unit packs up you lose the lot. I have an m84 which has about 2 hrs on it and the micro processor has quit. It will be about 5 weeks from the time of failure to when I get it back. Two of those weeks have been spent trying to get warranty accepted because the local agent didn't sell it.
At least with multiple units some things still work. If I had a sounder, I could use a hand-held GPS for the time being.
J.C.(Cav)
Dicko,
there are a couple of guys here with networked sounder / gps units, they tend to be both lowrance units.
I have 2 x 5" units, one lowrance combo and a Garmin gps (it is a combo without the transducer), I have installed a nmea 2000 network on the boat, however the garmin is not nmea compliant so the units cant talk.
I use both for different reasons, I too like the redundancy in the event of a failure. Now transfering the data (Marks / tracks) between the units is not a big problem it is fairly straight forward, using your home computer.
I use the garmin as the source of truth, and the lowrance I tend to use in sounder mode most of the time. however when moving long distances it is sometimes nice to have one unit zoomed in on the immediate area and one zoomed out so I can keep my long distance bearings. surprisingly it is very effective.
The garmin units have not really had the abilty to display all of the available nmea 2000 data, (this may have changed) but when I was sorting mine I still found this to be the case so the lowrance has a better nmea 2000 integration with devices.
As for the "structure scan", I think it is a very good option from lowrance, you can just add the transducer, use the current processing power of your existing unit. Nice one lowrance..
Regards
Honda
Originally Posted by honda900
It's good you have a system you're comfortable with, that's half the battle at the moment. I'm pretty comfortable with transferring points etc as I currently use a garmin GPS & oziexplorer. I haven't been shopping for gear in a few years & there's a fair bit of new stuff out there.
What I needed clarified was whether a point marked from a unit in 'sounder' mode would automatically show up in the other unit in 'GPS' mode, much the same as it would in a combo unit.
The reason being, when the sideimaging is in use, you can scroll the cursor over to the side, maybe 40 or 50 metres or so and mark a waypoint. (You need to do this from the sounder, not the GPS as the GPS will mark your current position, not the mark you want over to the side). With the mark then automatically showing up on the other 'GPS' unit you can easily navigate back to it without having to flick through screens etc. (effectively 2 units working as a big combo).
According to Lowrance they already work like that even though the structurescan is not in place. What will be worth noting, is that technically, the new point even though it's displayed on the other 'GPS' unit it will be saved on the original 'sounder' units memory. If all your other points are saved on the unit you're using as a GPS, at the end of the day you'd have to copy them across manually so so they're all stored together for ease of back up etc. Otherwise you'd end up with both units having a separate stock of points in them.
Although Lowrance has said that's how it works, it would be handy if someone has a set up like this & can confirm all is OK.
The retailers I spoke to didn't have a 7" in stock. Just the 5's and 10's. I need to have a play with one before I decide to see I can use it OK without having to put my glasses on. Otherwise it'll have to be the 10"
Hmm, I wonder how I can convince the other half to let me buy once of the new HDS units with a structure scan transducer... Anyone interested in a LMS527?
Very informative, thanks
That is great info ,Thanks Dicko. I have been looking at the Hbird and the Lowrance. There is some good info here on the unoffical HB site. Regards.
http://dir.groups.yahoo.com/group/si...&sec=dir&slk=1
http://store.humminbird.com/humminbi...ogy_01-p1.html
http://www.basspro.com/webapp/wcs/st...003000_250-3-0
What do I think?????
Well I have been eying off the side scan videos the day they were released, hence my recent purchases
No doubt it will require an update of some kind and possibly an Ethernet brain box or possibly a new transducer to run it. Can't wait for itto come out.
Is the end of this year still the proposed date Pete?
Lowrance had the side scanning technology long before humminbird, but decided not to introduce it into their previous models as it required broadband technology. Lowrance waited and Humminbird released their version not to long ago.
Which is better, well who knows. My tip is the Lowrance units will be because they will have made sure they have fixed all the little issues that the humminbirds have.
Positive thing is that now both manufacturers will be looking to compete for our business so the future looks good for side scanning.
Now the only real thing they need to fix is the ability to run a side scan unit at a low trolling speed from the electric motor. That would be the biggest disadvantage these units have, is that you must be doing like 5 knots to get a good reading.
Cheers
Lee
spoke to the rep at the boatshow today and he said that you will need a software upgrade (free) and a diferent transducer for aprox $1100 and would posibly be available here about september.
Just found out, the Structure Scan will be previewed at the Sydney Boat Show at the end of July and will be shipped to Australia for distribution on November.
Looks like we just miss out for Fathers day ... but oh well, Christmas is just fine
Cheers
Pete
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