Combo Plotter/Sounder units...

[AlexT]

Curious to know about the reaction of people who have gone this route. I certainly am aware of the benefits of having dedicated unit for each, but given constraints on space and not being a sounder freak, I'd like to know whether folks who have combo units are happy with them.

Right now I'm leaning towards the Furuno GP 1650 DF or the equiv. Garmin unit. The only comparable Lowrance unit is way out of range in price.

***FYI meant to post this on a different board but suffered from "windows confusion" from having too many windows open and accidentally posted this here. Figured I'd leave this up as most of you are fishermen anyhow. [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] ***

[ December 12, 2002, 10:15 PM: Message edited by: Alex ]

[Finster]

Uuummm, I tell everyone you get what you pay for. You can't spend $600 and expect too much. I use the lowrance Lcx-16ci and think it's the best combo out there. It's not cheap, but any good color unit is going to cost you some bucks. I also have a Lmx-15mt (mono version) and thats equaly as good, even better in direct sun, but once you go color you'll never go back.
A lot of people shoot down lowrance and I can't figure out why, if you talk with anyone that has one they'll tell you the same as I.

Capt. C Handel
Little Egg Charters

(sounds more offical) [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

I think I got off the subject a little.
Combo's are fine if you have a big enough screen to see both when you have them split. Individual units great but.....

[ December 12, 2002, 10:44 PM: Message edited by: Finster ]

[ocuyler]

Alex,

I did alot of homework and have decided on the Lowrance LCX-16ci color combo for my 23 CC redo.



I like the Garmin 2006c with the black box, but I wanted to keep it under $2,000 all in.

Oh, baby, I can't wait to use it. It'll be spring in, what, 5 months?

Otto

[AlexT]

I haven't seen the Lowrance for under $2k anywhere. The Furuno runs about $1.6k from what I have seen.

Granted, the Lowrance is probably the most modern, feature-packed unit, but I don't really need all that. As a fly fisherman sounders are of limited utility to me (don't fish deeper than 30' or so, and usually over/around obvious structure) so I don't want to pay for a bunch of functionality I'll never use.

While the Garmin unit looks good, I kinda like the horizontal screen of the Furuno; when you split the screen you have two vertical side by side areas instead of two horizontal stacked ones, which seems more useful and readable.

[John R]

I'm going to find a couple year old commercial grade FF as the primary unit and a decent monochrome FF/Chartplotter as secondary FF and for my chartplotting needs as I will want to map out specific areas and build a DB for my use [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img] .

[Finster]

John R, if you put a CRT on a CC you'll never see a thing. And if you have dual units it doughtfull you'll be able to use them at the same time due to frequency conflict. Just a thought. [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img]