gps combo sonar

[catchem]

so many choices so little info. What might one realy need to see the bottom contor and a school of bait fish. to find a spot on the map with gps?Cost from $350.00 to thousands they seem to be very much alike . what might one look for to get the job done.

[Genelie]

wattage..the more the better your reading....I have a Foruno 582L it has 600 watts (rms) works awesome

[fattiresc]

All I know is I have a Humminbird that came with the boat and I think it stinks at speed. I am not sure how accurate it is any other time either. It is a somewhat cheapie... I think new it was around $200 or so. I have been looking at the Garmin GPSMAP 498 ($750 or so) and the Lowrance LMS-337 ($699). I have thought about saving and spending more, but I think it depends on how you boat/fish and where you do. I fish in my local lake all year except 3 weeks or so on the coast (best part of my fishing year!). So it is hard for me to justify anymore money, although to get what I really want, and possibly much more than I need, I would spend around $1600.

I think I am going to set a budget and find what I can best live with for that. It is just like a TV, I want a big display... but can't afford it.

[Timagination]

At least it sure seemed so to me. They were selling them for $919 until early October when they dropped the price to $719. These units have a really nice chartplotter built into a large screen GPS unit with all of the US coastal maps pre-loaded. I drove to Delaware to avoid MD's sales tax and....lo and behold...the only unit in stock was the demo. Another $72 off for a pristene unit with all of the docs.....box, etc.

Long learning curve, for myself at least as I've not got anyone close by to show me the ropes.

[elroy]

i have a garmin 498c and it is great. Nice clean crisp picture. It has saved me a few times off the coast of maine when the fog comes in. The fishfinder also works well. can't see not having one and it's worth the money. chech gps.com it had the best price.

[fattiresc]

Yea, they are not that cheap anymore... :-)

But I am glad to hear that folks like it. Anyone else have one they want to talk about? I know there are fans of Raymarine and Furuno here, which are really nice but do not fall into the sub $1000 category.

This thread really should be in the Electronics area, not sure if someone can move us or if anyone really cares. I was going to pose this same question in here a fwe days ago and then realized last night that there was an Electronics area... :-) Not criticizing at all, just sharing info.

[NCangler]

I think Dave the Putershark beat me to it. The thread has been moved to the electronics forum. Thanks for thinking of this. As Dave has said before if we can add relevant info for searching to the titles of our threads/posts and put them in the forums that fit the subject, it will be much easier for folks to find the information they are looking for.

[Putershark]

Yep, moved it with some others last night
Matter of fact, I spend a lot of time sorting posts and feel many times like a card dealer! Ha-Ha... Not always easy to find the correct fit, but if everybody would also limit their questions to one per thread (we don't about the number of threads created ) it would make that job a lot easier for sure

Thanks again!

[AstroDiver]

Timagaination
"Long learning curve, for myself at least as I've not got anyone close by to show me the ropes."

If you have any questions they folks at Garmin can be really helpful.
I had some problems loading my GPSMAP unit with software and with a phone call to Garmin, they talked me through the process. Sometimes the instruction manual is not "computer dummy" friendly.

You have just got to find some time and sit down and 'play' with the unit. At least you are lucky and have all of the maps built in! I get the joy of paying more money anytime I want to add another Blue Chart map to what I have.

Have fun!

[Timagination]

Yes the folks at Garmin are very good at phone support, in my limited experience. I called them in relation to a topic that Fattiresc probably already knows about, the GPSMap 498 does have an enormous database built into the unit of all of the most current coastal charts imagineable, but there is a limit to how far upstream you can navigate and still get information and to my knowledge, there is no chartage whatsoever of inland lakes.

I purchased the AC adapter w/PC connectivity hookup and it is a very worthwhile investment, I think, if you're going to buy something as complicated as this, unless you're extremely well versed in all of the functions already. I've spent hours exploring coastal areas all over the US, most places I've never been to but.........

I discovered a somewhat disturbing peculiarity to the way the charts adjoin one another at the headwaters of the Chesapeake Bay, particularly where the Elk and North East Rivers, having diverged, both tend northwards beyond the western end of the C&D canal. If you're not zoomed in to a range of .3NM or less, you simply run into "uncharted" territory.....major landmasses still show in outline, but that's it. It would seem that some sort of legend on-screen, similar to Google Map's notice that..... "high resolution photography is not available at this zoom level" might avert discomfit such as mine, thinking that I had somehow deleted something I was supposed to already own.

It was funny because it took the Garmin guy a few minutes of fooling around on his own GPS unit to duplicate what it was that I was seeing, and as soon as he did he too was surprised that all of the detail simply ended.

I think that the data cards that extend the coverage to rivers and lakes are about $200.