Lowrance HD

I ordered the hds 7 on my new boat and didnt do alot of reasearch on them so this is my question. If its not the insite you can still get 3d mapping its just not pre loaded? Has anyone installed and used the sirus puck? It looks like one is just for weather and one is for weather and music,etc. Does the unit attach to your radio through a standard acc. port on the radio? also can the hds interlink to the older models utlizing one transducer?

Jason/Guys;

I am in Kansas City this week on business. While here I stopped in at the Cabelas today and had a lengthy conversation with the guy in the Marine Electronics Dept. He seemed very knowledgeable and was willing to answer my questions. I’ve been looking at the Humminbird’s and thinking I’d pass on Lowrance as the Humminbird’s Side Imaging is tested and had the bugs worked out.

With that being said, this guy had some new insight. He’s actually seen footage of the Lowrance “Structure Scan” (Side Imaging). He said with the HD, the Lowrance Structure Scan is unreal. A lot more defination than the Humminbird.

He uses both brands and he said he’ll be putting an HDS8 in his boat once they come out with the Structure Scan.

Since I’m considering dropping around 3k on graphs for my boat, I think I’m going to wait till Lowrance finally steps up to the plate and gets the upgrades and Structure Scan completed. Then I can do a real side by side comparison and decide on knowledge, not broken promises (Lowrance).

FYI, the Lowrance Structure Scan will be a $400 upgrade on top of what you’ve paid for the system originally.

I have many Lowrances and I also fish for a living full time all year so electronics are more important than most fisherman understand. With that being said I do not like the new page layouts and the new mapping on the Lowrances I do not care for the contour mapping etc.. I also think your not getting as much “bang for your buck” with these new units.

I actually went out and bought a couple of last years models because I like them a lot more than the new units. For me using the “ICONS” is very very important marking fish, structures, hazrards, rock, weeds, schooling bass, muskies, etc.. I do this all with Icons and the new units make it very difficult to get to the icon screen, where as the old units had a Icon buttom that you can just push and they pop up.

Just my honest opinion and I’m I own all Lowrances for my boats. I still feel they make the best electronics however I feel they dropped the ball on these new models with several features muissing or difficult to get to for the average fisherman.