Best Price - Lowrance HDS

[krazyfisher]

whiteman

The prices I quoted are from reef marine in mackay. A mate just fitted them with the network cable $34. fuel flow $130. Starter kit I think $50.

[NEWBY]

Except for saying FURUNO.....or any other brand, I have no comment. I personally wouldn't take a Lowrance even if it were for free.

[Dicko]

CH Smith Marine in Melbourne did the best deal when buying a bunch of items a few months ago. Maybe worth a try.

[whiteman]

CH Smith Marine in Melbourne did the best deal when buying a bunch of items a few months ago. Maybe worth a try.

Dicko, have had a look at their prices and they are OK and I'm sure that Bias will match locally. I haven't tried anywhere else in TSV/CNS as yet.

Is your unit running faultlessly? I know Mr NEWBY has had a few issues, but like you, I'll have stock standard transducer setup.

And I assume you know 87% of all statistics are made up on the spot. Just had lunch with an economist named Chris Caton and it was a stats overload.

[Dicko]

Mine's running fine, still happy as larry.

regarding statistics, you don't hear much from the 99.9% of people who are happy with them, of those 92.7 % of them aren't even on the net.

[honda900]

Whiteman,

Sorry really cant help on the pricing situation; but maybe help you troll through some of this.

Firstly, a HDS8 in dual screen mode, to give you both sounder and gps displayed on the same screen, is basically the same size as the 2 hds5's for real estate.

The 2 units will give you some redundancy, without a doubt, just be smart in your wiring.

Dont belive all that you read, if you are using the unit in shallow water then generally not an issue.

If you fish deep water > 50mtrs, as newby says consider the furuno, for fun try to find HDS footage at speed in deep water.

Regards
HOnda.

[fisho ricko]

Hi Whiteman,

I got a HDS8 for my old man a couple weeks ago, with fuel flow/nmea kit and navionics gold aus chart quite a bit cheaper at Northside Marine. So i would definitely recommend checking there pricing, and they gave great service too. I dealt with a guy named Anthony.

I just hit them up for a package price for buying everything. Gotta say the functions of the new unit are so much easier to use then his old raymarine unit, even my old man can use it (he can't even use a computer too well) but he's learning pretty quick on this.

Cheers
Rick

[Stressless]

Ordered an HDS 7 this morning for the tinnie from C & H Marine Melb for $ 1399, ducer/box $ 649.

The next best price was $ 1699 and $ 699.

Decided to buy locally to ensure no warranty or "red area" issues.

Friends have them and swear by them fishing barra haunts

Steve

PS Have a 585 in the reef boat

[Reel Blue]

I have a HDS 8 and it it by far the best sounder/gps that I have ever used. Touch wood as I haven't had any issues, but so far I love it.

[Angryant]

I got my best price for a HDS-7 from ###### marine on the Gold Coast. My local Bias store matched their price.

Angryant

[Moonlighter]

I got both my HDS5x and HDS5m from Northside Marine in Brisbane. They are great on service and price. Got agreat deal in particular on the HDS5m that included the latest Navionics Gold Australia chart, so ask for a package price, they do great deals.

With regard to the issue of combo units such as a single HDS8 compared to 2 x HDS5's, I do like the separate screen because a splt screen has to be pretty big to give as much area as the 2 x 5's!

The only word of caution with the HDS5x is that it is a sounder only, and has no SD card slot, so you cant do screen dumps to view on PC, and any software updates have to be done by connecting it to a compatible GPS via an ethernet cable, which costs $60.

In hindsight, if I did it again I would get 2 x HDS5 combo's, or at least 1 combo HDS 5 and a HDS5m GPS. That would deal with the issues mentioned above, plus it would give plenty of redundancy capacity in the event that one of the units failed while out on the water.

Cheers

ML