Dear Marcum…..

Todd Henneberg wrote:

But if they are not releasing it just yet, means there’s technical issues needed to be fixed first.

Thanks for the explanation John Madden…

Any time

I guess I’m a fan of just putting my vexilar in the hole and it working fine all the time. I fish 95% of the time in under probably 8 feet of water given the lakes by me, so the shallow water setting issue is huge for me. I don’t want to have to have my transducer in the middle of the hole when trying to jig. My FL-20 works great, but I would upgrade to the LX-7 or 9 if they had their issues fixed as I love the different screens and how big the display is. Hopefully they’ll get things figured out by next year.

Any news on this?

Seeing as the 16-17 ice force catalog is advertising the RT-9 coming to market, bet they scrapped anything to do with the lx series or have been so overloaded with it they don’t have time for the updates which if that is the case is a huge bummer.

New catalog:
http://usa.rapala.com/catalog/iceforce/files/mobile/index.html#1

ahh, another year of the purple unicorn that is the RT-9…

the only complaint is that they say there is an update coming and everyone is left waiting. i work in hardware industry. our products have the ability to be updated. that doesn’t always mean an update is needed. for our digital lx devices, i don’t really need anything on mine updates. so them saying they HAVE an update coming doesn’t matter to me.

i don’t get the shallow water problem. i’ve owned plenty of mechanical flashers of all brands and in less than 4′ of water all you can pick up is the bottom and maybe a few inches off the bottom where you might see your jig if DIRECTLy under the ducer.

whenever a vex homer starts spouting off aobut “NOT NEEDING UPDATES because it works!!!” i just picture them in a 85 pontiac parisienne shouting “i dont’ need no digital radio!!!”

U mean this purple unicorn ?

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hnd wrote:

the only complaint is that they say there is an update coming and everyone is left waiting. i work in hardware industry. our products have the ability to be updated. that doesn’t always mean an update is needed. for our digital lx devices, i don’t really need anything on mine updates. so them saying they HAVE an update coming doesn’t matter to me.

i don’t get the shallow water problem. i’ve owned plenty of mechanical flashers of all brands and in less than 4′ of water all you can pick up is the bottom and maybe a few inches off the bottom where you might see your jig if DIRECTLy under the ducer.

whenever a vex homer starts spouting off aobut “NOT NEEDING UPDATES because it works!!!” i just picture them in a 85 pontiac parisienne shouting “i dont’ need no digital radio!!!”

Hey “Jeffro”
Vex owner “homer” here…
We catch fish with our “85 Pontiacs wit no digital radios”
Its usually you homers that hone in on our fishin holes and set up right next to us ’cause you can’t figure it out!
Wonder why?:???:

Proud “homer” here as well.

I’ve been using a Sonar/GPS ice combo for the past 3 ice seasons.

Sure, mine can’t play Pokemon Go, but I can still see what’s happening under the ice.

And FYI, there’s rumors that Garmin engineers have been gathering info about ice units currently on the market.

Panoptix on ice would be pretty sweet

You can find Lowrance Elite-5 ice machines for pretty cheap nowadays, great little GPS/Sonar unit and you can turn around and use it one the boat during the summer months…

After speaking with our friends at Marcum we found out that due to ice conditions last season MarCum was unable to get the amount of testing they would typically perform to ensure with 100% certainty there were no bugs or problems with the new firmware. A release will be available for the upcoming ice season. As of now they do not have a scheduled release date, but it will be available before the lakes ice over.

Thank you for the information!

Marcum should have put an update on their website 6-7 months ago!

bullcans wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>hnd wrote:</div>
the only complaint is that they say there is an update coming and everyone is left waiting. i work in hardware industry. our products have the ability to be updated. that doesn’t always mean an update is needed. for our digital lx devices, i don’t really need anything on mine updates. so them saying they HAVE an update coming doesn’t matter to me.

i don’t get the shallow water problem. i’ve owned plenty of mechanical flashers of all brands and in less than 4′ of water all you can pick up is the bottom and maybe a few inches off the bottom where you might see your jig if DIRECTLy under the ducer.

whenever a vex homer starts spouting off aobut “NOT NEEDING UPDATES because it works!!!” i just picture them in a 85 pontiac parisienne shouting “i dont’ need no digital radio!!!”

Hey “Jeffro”
Vex owner “homer” here…
We catch fish with our “85 Pontiacs wit no digital radios”
Its usually you homers that hone in on our fishin holes and set up right next to us ’cause you can’t figure it out!
Wonder why?:???:

someone translate this for me?

biggill wrote:

And FYI, there’s rumors that Garmin engineers have been gathering info about ice units currently on the market.

Panoptix on ice would be pretty sweet

i was hoping for something on this at icast. a garmin ice unit i imagine would be awesome.

Nick Cox wrote:

After speaking with our friends at Marcum we found out that due to ice conditions last season MarCum was unable to get the amount of testing they would typically perform to ensure with 100% certainty there were no bugs or problems with the new firmware.

Im sorry, but that is a sad excuse. There should be absolutely NO reason they have to test this “on ice”. If they want to test fixes for “shallow water”, find a dock and set it up. You can simulate nearly any ice fishing situation aside from the cold in the open water months.
My buddy uses his lx9 in the summer. No reason they couldn’t validate this stuff year around.
This is coming from a guy who loves his Marcum products…The excuses are well, just excuses.

The frustration is easy to understand, as we all want our equipment in working order. If you are having one issue, or a number of issues you may want to have them take a look at the unit in question and see if they can look the product over for anything out of the norm. Outside of that, I compare this scenario to updates on my phone or computer, they need to work prior to release because when they don’t work and updates are released it creates a backlog of issues and then we all suffer. I am pleased to know the updates are coming, and the kinks will be worked out prior to hardwater season.

Nick Cox wrote:

Outside of that, I compare this scenario to updates on my phone or computer, they need to work prior to release because when they don’t work and updates are released it creates a backlog of issues and then we all suffer. I am pleased to know the updates are coming, and the kinks will be worked out prior to hardwater season.

I agree 100%, but my point was “lack of ice” should NOT be an excuse for them to resolve any firmware or other problems. There are endless ways they can test these things and ice isn’t required. They can sit in a kayak for heaven’s sake and verify. Nothing says they have to be hovering over a 10″ hole in the ice.
I don’t recall any one of the issues being reported to be caused by scenarios requiring cold and ice.
I don’t have a dog in this fight, since my marcums are flawless and not the “new age” stuff, but that excuse just rubbed me the wrong way.

Understood. I do think you will appreciate the updates when they happen, and now that we have some sort of timeline all we can do is wait. Here is to hoping for FANTASTIC ICE this coming season!

Does the update address the shallow water issues?

CaptainMusky wrote:

I don’t have a dog in this fight, since my marcums are flawless and not the “new age” stuff

I think the problem lies here….offering too much new technology without being certain it works, just to keep up with the Jones. And this holds true for all of the ice locator makers. In the long run if y’all leaned on fishing “experience” instead of battery operated technology so much you’d be far better off and have way less to fume about. All you need to do is mark the fish or depth…..then use your own smarts. Of course if you haven’t taken time to learn to fish without electronic help you’ll be kind of in the dark for a while.

We have boundary waters where gas equipment of any sort isn’t allowed, maybe we should have 50% of the lakes set aside as primitive waters where no shelters, locators or power augers and transportation are allowed. Have special license rates for those that want to fish these waters….like a license 50% cheaper.

All this misery when you could wait a year to see how something works in the real world and then spend your hundreds of bucks. Dumb.

Nick Cox wrote:

Here is to hoping for FANTASTIC ICE this coming season!

x1000!

and a spearing season for deer ? wth ?