Lowrance Electronics

[CaptMissMac]

Been interested in the Lowrance line of side scan sonar units. My brother has one on his boat. My most pressing concern is are the Lowrance units up to quality of say a Furuno unit. Little leary of spending cash on something that will not last. Any thoughts?

 

[CEShawn]

I put the Lowrance Structure Scan on my Simrad NSE8 and love it. Granted it does not do great finding fish persay for structure it is awesome. I find bumps, lumps and other crap all over the place. It does pick up schools of fish/bait but not individual unless they are in the water column below you.

Granted I went with Simrad for quality and then found out I could put the Structure Scan on it. I ended up having to replace that Simrad unit the first year due to a faulty issue in the unit. I could not shut the unit down, kept restarting. They sent me a new power cable thinking it was shorted but cable tested fine and new one did the same thing. They sent me a brand new unit when I gave them a tracking number to the unit I sent back.

Customer Service was exceptional, all this was taken care of in a matter of days. The people I talked to were technical troubleshooters not just someone going through a list on the phone.

I installed my transducer smack dab in the middle of my hull to save from having to use two.

 

[boot]

Do a google search on "lowrance customer service" and you will have your answer.It's the worst i've ever experienced.

 

[Grandslam35]

I do have a HDS 7 Unit and I love it, and that includes the Lowrance chart that comes pre-instaled. Funny I called Lowrance customer service with an install question and they answered questions pretty quick, or called me back in a timely manner.
Took my numbers easily from my Lowrance Global Map 5000C, which I have had for 12 years without any issues, so I believe my Lowrance units have been good to me for a number of years.

The HDS does not spot individual fish well on the side scan-Left right mode, but switch to downscan and adjust the power and it will do a better job or you could get another transducer for it and then you have a regular color fish finder. Teamed up with my Furono Fish finder and I have no doubt at what I am seeing on the bottom, and so far I have seen wrecks, dredginging piplines, small and larger boulders and rocky patches that I never knew were there and these new spots have resulted in me catching a lot of stripers over structure on no name spots.

I also have the weather module and with this I can watch approaching thunderstorms and decide when it is tme to head for the barn.

The brother of captmissmac, Tom.

 

[jawz]

Do a google search on "lowrance customer service" and you will have your answer.It's the worst i've ever experienced.

for the longest time,i would advise clients not to purchase lowrance products - due to their problems and lack of any kind of customer support...
with all that:
in the last few years,the company went through a bunch of changes - all for the better ! i had a problem with a unit on my own boat - it was on it,when i purchased - the unit was out of warranty,and,it wasn't to be sent back to the factory for repair - lowrance went out of their way,and sent me,free of any charge,a complete unit - the new upgraded unit - complete,with 'ducer and gps antenna...that unit has worked trouble free for the last 2 seasons - i can honestly tell you,it's probably the best sonar set up i have ever used,and trust me,i've used and installed them all...
i have seen absolutley no problems with the newer lowrance units - i would definatley reccomend them...

 

[CaptMissMac]

CESHAWN Not Sure what you mean by putting the Lowrance Structure scan on your Simrad. Aren't they two seperate entities?

 

[Grandslam35]

Just a comparison

Figured out how to post pictures so why not show the comparison of a color f/f and structure scan. With the structure scan bass and blues show up like grains of rice, and here you can see quite a few fish off both sides of the hull, and of course all the rocks on the bottom just off the Montauk Lighthouse are clearly visible.

Tom.

 

[Field Tester]

Hey Tom,

How deep does that side scan work?? Someone told me it only works to about 40ft. Also, how did you mount the transducer? Is it two separate ones on each side of the keel? Or, one on the bottom of the keel?

 

[Grandslam35]

I have used it as deep as 120 feet or so. There are settings on the menu for "general use, trolling, shallow water, and deepwater" etc. Change the setting and it fine tunes it a bit. If I go to "deepwater" I here a clicking on my radio, caused but the higher power being used, but shallow water works 90% off Montauk. you can also manually change power settings and how far it looks off the each side of the boat. Don't know how it would do in the canyon, but for what we use it for in Montauk it's great. I have two tranducers one mounted on each side of the keel. I guess you could put one in the middle somewhere near the stern, but you might get interference here. The extra transdeucer only cost about $250, and when I bought them there were rebates on them so I even payed less. I have a Hummingbird as a back up f/f that also has sidescan, and the Lowrance shows much more definition.

Tom.

 

[Field Tester]

Thanks Tom,

I was thinking of adding that unit to the boat. I don't go to the canyon, but it would be nice to use it to find some offshore wrecks.

Chris

 

[Relentless]

"I here a clicking on my radio, caused but the higher power being used"- Not sure how bad the clicking is, but its a fairly easy fix. I am assuming that the coax cable for your vhf radio feeds through the same place the transducer cable and power sources run. If so, there are tons of "magnetic-field shield protectors" products that reduce interference. You just feed the coax cable through, especially where the coax is near any power supply wires; which should eliminate most if not all of the interference. One of the products that does this is called Spira-Shield Flexible Conduit. Easy way to fix a big annoyance.

 

[Grandslam35]

Relentless-Thanks for that I will give it a try.

Chris
I clearly marked a wreck off Gurney's with it, vessel ribs lying there like a skeleton, and also can precisely make out the pipeline from the dredging going on in Montauk Inlet. I don't want it to seem like I work for the company because I don't, but the unit is everything I hoped it would be. I'm sure some company will come out with a bigger/better unit, but I'm glad I got it and have a bunch of new waypoints as a result of it that have produced quite a few fish for me this season, that I probably would not have caught.

Tom.

 

[boot]

for the longest time,i would advise clients not to purchase lowrance products - due to their problems and lack of any kind of customer support...
with all that:
in the last few years,the company went through a bunch of changes - all for the better ! i had a problem with a unit on my own boat - it was on it,when i purchased - the unit was out of warranty,and,it wasn't to be sent back to the factory for repair - lowrance went out of their way,and sent me,free of any charge,a complete unit - the new upgraded unit - complete,with 'ducer and gps antenna...that unit has worked trouble free for the last 2 seasons - i can honestly tell you,it's probably the best sonar set up i have ever used,and trust me,i've used and installed them all...
i have seen absolutley no problems with the newer lowrance units - i would definatley reccomend them...

Good to hear they corrected it,although I still have a bad taste in my mouth about never getting a reply after numerous attempts to contact them and hours on hold after spending quite a bit of money on their product.In all fairness,this was a few years ago,so I'm glad they're better now that I have a Furuno.