I’m wanting to use the yellow ethernet cord to hook these two units up and use the HDS5 more for the navigation and waypoints and the HDS7 for the DI and SS. Does anyone know if I can use the HDS7 as my waypoint designation but have it show up on the HDS5? I know the HDS7 has a much faster processor is why I ask? If so what settings would I have to change? I hope this makes sense. 
yes, if you connect the two via the Ethernet cable the waypoints you create on one will immediately be transferred to the other. Even ones that existed before will show up. This is why I like to name my waypoints in something other than “001” etc because if there end up being duplicates its easy to eliminate them.
I also want to give you a heads up that when you connect the two, by default the “network sonar” will turn on and you will want to turn this radio button off in sonar settings. Otherwise you may end up with undesired results as in wondering why the heck you don’t have any sonar readings because there is no transducer connected to the device it thinks is the “source”. This will NOT affect waypoint sharing, only sourcing which unit is sourcing the sonar information. The nice thing about connecting a touch unit to a pre-touch unit is you can view structure scan stuff on the non-touch unit (have to turn on network sonar to achieve) which is nice.
I was told I would have to update both units to the most recent update but I just read that the update on the HDS7 gen2 was causing problems with the navionics or lakemaster card? I’m also having a heck of a time updating the units?!?! I can’t seem to get the update loaded on the SD card correctly or something? I download, unzip and then save to the card but when I put the card in the unit to update, it won’t recognize the update right away and I can’t seem to get it to update?
I don’t see why you would have to update both units at all. It is true that the new SW screws with the LakeMaster chips, not sure about Navionics though. I have 3 HDS units in my boat, two of which are networked using the Ethernet cable and only ONE is running version 4.0. The other unit is running 3.0 I believe. I haven’t had any issues with them not being on the same version.
If you desire is to share a mapchip from one unit to the other THEN I think you have no choice but to update, but if that map chip is a LakeMaster (and possibly Navionics) then I think you might have trouble.
IMO the best solution is to go with the Lowrance Lake Insight Pro chips. I know its another cash outlay that you probably don’t want, but it will be inevitable that you will need to get one at some point seeing what Lowrance has done here with this recent update.
The Lowrance Lake Insight chips use the same data from the LakeMaster chips PLUS they add in Lake of the Woods AND Rainy River on the one chip where that was two separate chips with LakeMaster.
I appreciate the information! Looks like I might have to get the new chip. I like that it has most of the lakes I fish anyway and I wouldn’t have to switch out cards going into Iowa.
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