[hyse]

Friend came to me with his new lowrance - cost about 800 quidd - most impressive but it said it came with detailed maps - didnt - some kind of sales gimmick, you have to pay extra for the detailed maps - the kind you use for fishing.
Ok so another £200 paid for the right card as the uploader didnt work - yes i know, you download the uploader - easy isnt it - nope didnt work - why not?
Navionics site - tried everything - well first though they dont say where you are supposed to download the uploader to (the card, nope) - that would help - anyways got it downloaded - didnt work.
Help chat - spent nearly 90 minutes with them - downloaded a program to my laptop so the guy could see my screen etc - still didnt work. (coo the program took some ridding i can tell you)
So my pal goes back to the shop and pays the extra 200 quidd and goes home and tries the machine - didnt work because i presume the money he paid was for a download not a actual working map, so we try downloading the downloader again with card plugged in card plugged out and so fith - well my friend is right upset (im not too happy either) so he goes back to the shop and buys a garmin with a c map card and it works - yes it works - just what he wanted - nope he really does not want to play on computers he just wants a working gps, the same as the one i have.
Problem as i see it is that some of us were not brought up with computers, we had to find out for ourselves, our knowledge is patchy at best - we lack the toy drive - the desire to play with a glorified office machine and make it sing, we just want the end product, nothing else.
Reminds me that my gps is way off - out of date i suspect - but im not sure i like the idea of paying so much and then having problems with a program for ----- sake.
By the way ive had a good look at the forums on navionics - no one has a bad word - must be my lack of computer skills then - funny i seem to manage sony vegas pro 13 allright.

 

[JonD]

This sounds like a friend of mine who simply didn't sellect the navionics chart in the lowrance menu. The amount of map detail should also be chosen within the head units menu.

I have owned Lowrance for about the last 10 years and have yet to need to use a computer to set anything up, in fact my gen 3 simply connects through wifi as soon as its with range of my router to keep itself up to date with any firmware upgrades. Im about as useless as they come in regards to computers but I do find reading the manual twice helps:Oo:

Post a video you made with sony pro 13, Im looking for something other than imovie for my daughter.

 

[hyse]

so you have wi fi on the boat - dont have anything like that.
The lowrance gps comes with preloaded maps - the maps show things like islands and at finest detail some shallows but not fine enough to navigate by, let alone fish by - you have to understand that 10 meters to the left you hit rocks - 5 meters to the right the same - the navigation here is very tricky - doesent matter what you select on the navionics menu you need the downloader first - if the downloader doesent work - with or without the anti virus program you are in a difficult situation - new machine first try -, second try - much easier to get a complete map and just stick it in.
Sony pro 13, went through a number of other programs first - seems the only way to get a good working program is to have a dedicated machine - otherwise its functionality changes (or use mack)- vegas pro is stolid - lacks a number of bells and whistles that others have but it has proven itself over time - the lighter vegas programs are good too and very competitively priced. these are with sony vegas https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=craftsmank

 

[JonD]

No I don't have wifi on my boat but as mentioned I do have it at home where the gen 3 units will automatically search for any networks just like a mobile phone will. I keep the boat at home so allow it to connect to my home network which it does automatically. Places such as MacDonalds have free wifi so my Lowrance will also connect there if I park close enough in range.

With my older units ( hds 5, hds7 and two hds8's ) I never bothered updating as they worked fine out of the box.

For true accuracy between rocks as you mention I personaly wouldn't rely on any Nav system even using track back after making a clean run the first time. I've often had my Garmin car gps say I'm in the middle of a field on roads I regularly have no issues on.

If I had to navigate in such tight conditions about the only thing I would rely on would be my eyesight and forward facing sonar.

Not sure which Sony product i was told about before but aparantly you could do slow motion with footage that hadn't been filmed at high speed by the software adding frames to the footage, sounded good.

 

[hyse]

software adding frames for slow speed, havent come across that - but time stretch is no problem.
My fishing boat is a bit big to bring home - id have to take down the masts too - yesterday i did a 10 hour trip most of it in very shallow waters between islands and through very narrow fjords- used gps,maps and sight - and yes of course youre right about not relying on the gps but sometimes you have to - last year after a motor rebuild the fuel line developed a leak so we had to do all kinds of manoeuvring in the tween deck spaces and on deck, when we finally got it going it was very dark - as the batteries were nearly gone we had been using a torch - yes one of those ultrabright thingies - that died too so we had to rely on gps to see us between the marker poles and rocks - we took a lobster pot with us but we managed it without hitting anything vital - didnt take long to hack the ropes off either - the prop just snapped the lobster pot line with no bother. Ho hum
Interesting to hear your earlier units worked fine out of the box but the new one needs constant updating - the uploader from navionics didnt work - wonder if they had not taken into account that Norway is a different country - must ask around to see if any others have had the same problem - should be a sinch

 

[JonD]

I'm sure the new one would work fine out of the box too, I think most of the updatetes are for things that wouldn't concern me as it worked extremely well when I first installed it and I haven't seen any difference even after it updates itself. I don't bother going online to see what any updates are for, kind of like how my Mac seems to have some update every few days.

On the old units I remember one update was to add more languages and another was to improve depth, for me with the unit working fine in over 600m I didn't see any of the improvements as anything that I really needed. I'm kind of the opinion if it ain't broke don't mess with it!!!

It would be interesting to find out how many other people on here have had the problem you had at start up as there are many happy Lowrance and navionics users on here and what you had to do would certainly put me off. Honestly I've only ever known people wire them into the boat and turn them on and simply put the Nav card into the slot then select it in the menu. My navionics also came with a free download so I could put a copy on my computer for planning and transferring trips.

Just add anyone who needs updates and may not be able to get them for what ever reason, simply send a 1gb or larger blank sd or micro sd card to Lowrance ( navico) and they will put any updates onto the card for you for free. If the upload procedure has changes due to the update Lowrance will simply walk you through the procedure over the phone.

I've found uploading videos to YouTube seems to change every time I want to post a video, I search for the latest upload tutorial but often find unless it's only a day or two old the procedure has changed, same goes for audio swap with YouTube.

It's sounds great where you are navigating your boat, I'm about to head off where I will be navigating amongst coral reef for 6 days, I've found even though I can see reef clearly it can still be very misleading of the depth. Last year I put my rib high and dry over a patch of reef simply following trackback ( low angle of sun turned the surface into a glarey mirror ).

 

[hyse]

I'm sure the new one would work fine out of the box too, I think most of the updatetes are for things that wouldn't concern me as it worked extremely well when I first installed it and I haven't seen any difference even after it updates itself. I don't bother going online to see what any updates are for, kind of like how my Mac seems to have some update every few days.

On the old units I remember one update was to add more languages and another was to improve depth, for me with the unit working fine in over 600m I didn't see any of the improvements as anything that I really needed. I'm kind of the opinion if it ain't broke don't mess with it!!!

It would be interesting to find out how many other people on here have had the problem you had at start up as there are many happy Lowrance and navionics users on here and what you had to do would certainly put me off. Honestly I've only ever known people wire them into the boat and turn them on and simply put the Nav card into the slot then select it in the menu. My navionics also came with a free download so I could put a copy on my computer for planning and transferring trips.

Just add anyone who needs updates and may not be able to get them for what ever reason, simply send a 1gb or larger blank sd or micro sd card to Lowrance ( navico) and they will put any updates onto the card for you for free. If the upload procedure has changes due to the update Lowrance will simply walk you through the procedure over the phone.

I've found uploading videos to YouTube seems to change every time I want to post a video, I search for the latest upload tutorial but often find unless it's only a day or two old the procedure has changed, same goes for audio swap with YouTube.

It's sounds great where you are navigating your boat, I'm about to head off where I will be navigating amongst coral reef for 6 days, I've found even though I can see reef clearly it can still be very misleading of the depth. Last year I put my rib high and dry over a patch of reef simply following trackback ( low angle of sun turned the surface into a glarey mirror ).

Exactly - i cant see why there should be a problem, but there certainly is or was - talking to the help line did not work either - yes youre right about sending the card to Lowrance - but its so frustrating, should be just a simple plug and play.
It is interesting to note how few people use the net for honest comments - if there is a genuine problem concerning Lowrance and maps then Lowrance should be aware of it - they can only be aware if people tell them - a poor product or problems, an honest review and the companies soon fix those problems. My friend simply returned his machine and got a garmin. (did first though try to sell me the lowrance hihiii)