need a new ff/chartplotter - Striper Talk Striped Bass Fishing, Surfcasting, Boating

niko · 07-06-2010, 04:29 PM

so my old one crapped out yesterday down in nauset. it has been giving me issues for the last few trips and finally died - comes up as poor sat reception, i swapped out the antenea w/ no luck. i'm looking for another combo unit in the $750 range. i've had a garmin and the furuno looks good but's not in the budget. how are the lowrance and raymarine products in general?

redlite · 07-06-2010, 05:16 PM

Don't go cheap. Good electronics can many times be the difference between fish and no fish. You get what you pay for.
Friends use Furuno and Raymarine. Both love both. To each their own. Its just a matter of spending the time to really learn how to use them to their fullest capabilities.
My shore electronics fail often as well..............

redlite · 07-06-2010, 05:17 PM

I know my previous post probably was of no help to you, but I just felt like posting.

niko · 07-06-2010, 05:22 PM

heard you were bitching about a "bad" night of fishing to our mutual friend. bad is pretty relative.

numbskull · 07-06-2010, 06:37 PM

Before you buy a new one, check your ground wire at the fuse block and at the battery. A weak ground connection often shows up first as a loss of satellite reception (or at least it used to with loran and I think I've had it with GPS as well).

Fisherwoman · 07-06-2010, 06:40 PM

we have the raymarine C120 it is awesome and very accurate. It is a bigger unit than you probably need but they make several smaller ones that are great as well.

Sea Dangles · 07-06-2010, 07:13 PM

I liked my Garmin at that pricepoint.

niko · 07-06-2010, 07:17 PM

sd - which garmin you running

Sea Dangles · 07-07-2010, 06:41 AM

Had it with my last boat;I think it was a 545s.Great unit with features like tides and currents as well as nice graphics.

Double Hall · 07-07-2010, 07:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sea Dangles

Had it with my last boat;I think it was a 545s.Great unit with features like tides and currents as well as nice graphics.

I have the same... I like it, but I won't be getting a shared unit again. I like having the chart on all the time to see holes and rocks, and with the FF on, the screen is just too small. The screen quality is amazing though. I would like to get the Vision BluChart chip to see what it can do. I think one feature is that the unit will plot a course for you, taking into account tides and currents.

I'll "upgrade" to two units when I upgrade to a larger boat with more flushmount space.

Rockfish9 · 07-07-2010, 08:40 AM

Depending on how big of a screen you want, I recomend the Garmin 541S with out reservation( I have not used the sounder extensivly as I have anoter color sounder on board, so it is stricly back up), I just upgraded my Garmin 126 ( 4" screen monochrome) with the 541s.. I love it, much more user friendly than the old 126, and having a larger screen and being color it is just the ticket.. I added the G2 vision card to the factory installed base map and love the 3D features ( I bought the card on a dealer $200 rebate promotion)...buying the unit from the Garmin factory warehouse saved me about $200 from what it would have cost from a local dealer...

MrHunters · 07-07-2010, 03:48 PM

love my lowrance hds-7 unit with navionics chip. only complaint i have is there is quite a bit of lag when you are moving and trying to move the cursor to view a point you want to get to. Other than that the finder is awesome!

niko · 07-07-2010, 08:39 PM

mr h that hds-7 looks tempting. i like the bigger screen. did you do an external ant?

MrHunters · 07-08-2010, 06:00 AM

internal antenna works fine inside the ph and its mounted.. I was shocked it worked. The other great thing is the lowrance network. EASY.. i mean I can do it easy... to hook up other lowrance devices to the network.
Added a fuel sensor for 100 bucks.. hooks right into the lowrance backbone and now shows up on the hds7. You can add radar overlay later on...
It's not top of the line but it does what I need it to do.

I got it with out the insight maps and added the navionics card... Stupid card stops at the NH border though. The google maps overlay is SICK!

Check out boemarine.com they have sales on the unit all the time.

Van · 07-08-2010, 07:20 AM

Garmin is top shelf for GPS, but their fishfinders are not quite there yet. Furuno or Ray is the way to go for that

I dont think Furuno has a low end combo unit.
If you want a combo unit, the Raymarine A 57 is reasonable, but you need to add the sounder module. So it also gets pricey.

Lowrance are pretty good too, a guy I charter with has one and it is sweet. But it is the higher end unit and big $$$...

Hope that helps
Good luck with whatever you get.

fish4striper · 07-08-2010, 07:33 AM

I have garmin 492 combo, ff part was just ok, it's a decent combo before they upgraded graphics, can be had now for $400 and chg. Added a furuno 620 ff, 600 watt. Marks everything well except groundfish. I'm told you need 1000w and up to mark the mudders.

niko · 07-08-2010, 05:13 PM

it's either the lowr hds 5 or the garmin 526. i'm hemming and hawing. the boat looks sweet mr h

Raider Ronnie · 07-08-2010, 05:21 PM

Paul,
What brand was your old unit ?
and I'm guessing maybe reusing the transducer may save you some $
My suggestion hoe some rides to check out what others are using !

angler229 · 07-08-2010, 05:38 PM

I've always had Lowrance units and have really good luck with them. The HDS with the nautic insight charts look sick as wel.

niko · 07-08-2010, 05:46 PM

the raym a50d is in the running too. my old unit was a garmin and i 'm still going to run the ff on it.

Double Hall · 07-09-2010, 08:17 AM

Somewhat unrelated.... do any of you use the "fish" symbols on your FF, or just use the natrual markings. I'm not the best at spotting fish without them, especially with just a quick glance, but I find the best thing about the Garmin symbols is that you can show depth #'s on each marked fish.

Rockfish9 · 07-09-2010, 09:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Double Hall

Somewhat unrelated.... do any of you use the "fish" symbols on your FF, or just use the natrual markings. I'm not the best at spotting fish without them, especially with just a quick glance, but I find the best thing about the Garmin symbols is that you can show depth #'s on each marked fish.

No.. as I stated earlier,I have Lowrance color machine ( model is lost to me) by cranking up the sensitivity to 95%, increasing the ping speed to max, and slowing down the scroll speed, I can see a 3lb cod fish in 300' of water in a nice clear arch...in water less than 100' the automatic mode, marks fish arches fine with no "monkeying with the system...

Double Hall · 07-09-2010, 11:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rockfish9

No.. as I stated earlier,I have Lowrance color machine ( model is lost to me) by cranking up the sensitivity to 95%, increasing the ping speed to max, and slowing down the scroll speed, I can see a 3lb cod fish in 300' of water in a nice clear arch...in water less than 100' the automatic mode, marks fish arches fine with no "monkeying with the system...

Thanks. I've never adjusted anything on the FF portion of my unit so I'll have to try tinkering with it and see what happens. My biggest learning obstacle is figuring out what "bait" looks like, rather than just a garble of surface noise dots.

I think I have "surface noise" turned off, although I dont know what that means/does for me.

Van · 07-09-2010, 11:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Double Hall

Thanks. I've never adjusted anything on the FF portion of my unit so I'll have to try tinkering with it and see what happens. My biggest learning obstacle is figuring out what "bait" looks like, rather than just a garble of surface noise dots.

I think I have "surface noise" turned off, although I dont know what that means/does for me.

Somethimes I use the depth indicator on my Furuno, sometimes not.
Even though these are crappy cellphone pics, easy to see bait at the top and lurking bass (moving) underneath with depth marks. THe other one without depth marks shows bass right inbetween schools of bait. So not sure on the garmin, but Furuno is crystal clear. It is well known Garmin has some more work to do on their FF.

Double Hall · 07-09-2010, 02:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Van

Somethimes I use the depth indicator on my Furuno, sometimes not.
Even though these are crappy cellphone pics, easy to see bait at the top and lurking bass (moving) underneath with depth marks. THe other one without depth marks shows bass right inbetween schools of bait. So not sure on the garmin, but Furuno is crystal clear. It is well known Garmin has some more work to do on their FF.

Thanks for the visual. I'm not seeing bait like in your 2nd pic, even when catching mackerel. I think I'll turn off symbols again, and mess with the gain. Probably need to turn it up.

Goose · 07-09-2010, 02:23 PM

Just picked up the Garmin 546s a couple weeks ago.... its in the ball park your looking for pricewise. I beleive its garmin best 5" that has some of the same features big dollar ones. To boot you don't have to buy the little black box for finding fish.... aaaaand super crisp screen.

niko · 07-09-2010, 08:43 PM

ended up ordering the garmin 546s. hope the small screen doesnt suck. i miss my big greyscale 238 allready. does garmin repair old units?

numbskull · 07-10-2010, 10:10 AM

Garmin repairs/reconditions/replaces stuff for a flat fee (@$150 I think) until they run out of part innovatory at which point they no longer will touch it. Check their site.

niko · 07-10-2010, 02:36 PM

thanks numby - your always helpful

keeperreaper · 07-10-2010, 08:07 PM

Paul go with the Furuno finder for sure. There is a reason all the commercial boats run furuno. I love my furuno stuff. Their chartplotter is complex to utilize everything so I bought a new standard horizon which I love and still have both sytems a board. Standard Horizon is cheap yet high quality and easy to use. I'd look hard at SH stuff if $$$$ is a concern. Higher budget I'd buy the Furuno stuff. Garmin and Raymarine I dont know much about so I wont say yeah or neah.