ISO Humminbird Recommendation/Referral

I have a HB 797 w/ GPS and SI as my main electronics and a HB 717 on the bow. I want to get a GPS unit up front, so was thinking of moving the 797 up front and upgrading to something a little bigger on the console. Any recommendations? Will all Bird’s play nice together? And could I keep the main ‘ducer as is and just link the new unit and the 797 up front? This is my first boat so it’s been a learning experience in many ways…this is just the latest! Thanks in advance

My situation might be a little unique, but i’m running an HDSI transducer on each side of the transom and a regular 2d sonar between the two SI’s.
Have an 898 SI linked to an 1199 SI running off the HDSI’s.
Have a 788 running by itself using the 2d sonar.

My SI operation is flawless, i suppose DI is as well but i don’t use it. My 2d however – they fight each other. I’ve played around with noise filters and thus far have the interference to a bare minimum, but still a flicker every few seconds.

Since your running the 97 i’m not familiar with it’s ethernet linking capabilities. If you aren’t looking to hook things together then your choices become much easier. 98’s are now all but gone.
There’s a lot of options out there now.

What specifically are you looking for on your new Bird?
SI, DI, obviously charting. Ethernet? Future I Pilot LInk? etc..

I want GPS/Graphing/SI in front and back, along with them being connected, so a mark I make on one will transfer to the other. I may be wrong but think this could also prevent me from having to have multiple SI ducers and GPS pucks? And possibly want future IPilot capabilities. I’m open to suggestions! I’m a long ways from your Doctorate level of electronics understanding tho apparently! lol THANKS for the help!

I know everyone will suggest getting the biggest screen you can afford, and I agree, but I was recently in a situation where I did have a pretty hard budget.

If you aren’t opposed to reconditioned units, Cabelas.com has the reconditioned 899 SI units for $650 currently. Which is a great price, it’s $350 off retail, which makes it a whopping $850 cheaper than a retail 999. They come with a 90 day warranty(which should get you through the end of the summer should there be any problems). Mine looks brand new out of the box and I can’t notice anything wrong with it.

The added screen size is nice, and some will argue it’s essential, but that’s a huge price difference that I couldn’t ignore.

I have no idea if they are linkable with a 797 though, definitely not the guy to talk to about that :).

Edit: so the pricing would go as follows:

Helix 5″ SI: $499.99
899 SI reconditioned: $649.99
899: $999.99
999: $1499.99 (+ $200 rebate) ~ $1299.99, although it’s a prepaid gift card as rebate.

So that jump from 5″ to 7″ screen is $150, and then the jump from 7″ to 8″ is $650-$850 depending how you look at it.

When you ethernet link two birds together, you don’t actually HAVE TO link anything but you can share everything also. There’s a network menu and on each unit you can select what you want to share. Waypoints, Which GPS or tranducer for SI, DI, 2d, Temp, etc.

My 898 is using the GPS from my 1199, even though i still have a puck hooked up to the 898. The 1199 has better GPS. I can also run the 1199 from the 898’s GPS or let them each run separately. Same goes with duecers etc.

Cool, so sounds like if I upgrade to a bigger main, I should be good to go. Just need an Ethernet cable, which I assume are universal (i.e. don’t need to get straight from HB?)

I think the plugin for the ethernet on the humminbird is proprietary, so I think you do need to buy special cables. I’d like to think it’s because a normal ethernet plugin would not be waterproof, but I’m cynical enough to know it’s probably just so humminbird can charge $30 for a product that costs $2 to make.

Gotta buy humminbird and if you want to link your new unit to your old, tell us what new unit you are looking at and we can tell you if it is compatible and what cable you will need.

In some cases you not only need the ethernet cable from humminbird, but an adapter for some specific units as well.

That’s what I get for assuming…I’m thinking I will upgrade later this summer so just doing my homework now. Thanks for the info, and I will post back once I’ve got it narrowed down but probably leaning toward the 899 si Phil mentioned.

Yeah, Have a buddy who just bought an 899 today for $830.

I’m not positive that you can link your 797 to anything.
http://www.humminbird.com/Products/797c2-SI-Combo/

The 97’s are older technology that i’ve had. I believe “Interlink” was used with that era.
I’d contact HBird about your possibilities with that 97 unit. Or, maybe start a thread with “797 Ethernet Link??” and possibly you’ll get someone to see the thread who’s done it.

I don’t know about the 797, 897 or 997 Ethernet capability, but I do know that my 1197 is linked via Ethernet with my 898 via the Ethernet hub which I have to support connection to my I-pilot link.

smokinbobo wrote:

I don’t know about the 797, 897 or 997 Ethernet capability, but I do know that my 1197 is linked via Ethernet with my 898 via the Ethernet hub which I have to support connection to my I-pilot link.

The 1197 is the Only “x97” that has ethernet the rest require interlink to network. Ethernet is more stable than the interlink was. If you want to network go with ethernet capable units.