Looking for a new Fish Finder - how's the GPS?

[SushiUnagi]

Curious if anyone has any info/experience with the GPS features on the fish finders?

I've read from a thread on here that the maps which comes with the units are US lakes only. If we want CDN lakes we need to buy the navionics chip? But then it doesn't contain that much AB lakes.

I'm particularly interested in finding out how would the GPS operate if you don't have the CDN maps. Does it still show your position relative to your waypoints, markers, etc.? Just doesn't have the pretty map layout showing the shoreline and basically the bathymetry?


If it helps answering this, I'm considering the following units:
- Elite 5
- 597ci
- 798CX SI


Thanks in advance all!

[Willowtrail]

I was talking to the boys at TFH about the Canada maps chip. I wondered the same thing about the lack of maps. They had a list of alot of the small lakes around Edmonton that I didn't expect to be on there. Go ask them to show you if the lakes you want are on it before you choose not to buy it.

As for your gps question I don't have your answer.

[Mudslide]

The base maps on the Humminbirds and some of the lower end Lowrance units are terrible for Canada, with virtually no water except for the Great lakes, Lake Winnipeg and a couple of other huge lakes showing. It's inexcusable and in my opinion it reflects a disrespect toward their Canadian customers. Lowrance is barely better, with otherwise great units like the M68 being virtually useless for Canadians. In fact the only unit that has decent base map for Canada is the Lowrance HDS series. The HDS has virtually all the lakes in Canada preloaded (at least in outline) The problem is that the navionics charts are only useful if your lake is on it. If it's not on the base map and it's not on the Navionics chart then you are SOL. I think the Lowrance units will also run the discontinued Freedom topo maps which have the water bodies on them as well. I haven't looked at the Garmin base maps but they should be able to run topo maps as well. All in all it's a pretty dismal picture for Canada. We should all write Humminbird and Lowrance and complain, because it would cost them nothing to include the lakes on units sold in Canada. They just don't seem to give a rip.

[npauls]

Mudslide it isn't the companies fault for the lack of canadian lake maps. The government has rights to all maps for Canada and charge big money to companies wanting to use them. I was told this by a few different reps this year at the boat show. They said if consumers wanted all the maps for lakes across Canada they would have to be willing to pay double or triple the cost that a unit is now just to cover the costs of buying rights to use those maps.

[Mudslide]

Sushi
To answer your question directly, I'm pretty sure that none of those units you are looking at has any Canadian lakes on the base maps. All you will see is a blank yellow screen. The gps will still function the same: eg saving waypoints, tracks, etc... but there will be no map. Look at the HDS-5 with the "U.S. Enhanced Basemap". Bass Pro just dropped the price a hundred bucks to $699 to match the US pricing. (ABOUT TIME!) I'm sure TFH and WSS won't be far behind.

Mud

[Mudslide]

Nate: I think maybe they were singing you a song. Lowrance has it on the HDS and not on the Elite and the price is not significantly higher. The Government doesn't own the outline of the lakes they just charge for the hydrographic info that they have collected.

[npauls]

I have the hds 8 on my boat and it shows all the lakes on the base map but doesn't give any depths or anything on them. Once I plug in the chip I can see a bunch of lakes with the depth charts on them. But there is still alot that aren't there. The reps have told me that is because of the cost of purchasing these depth chart rights from the Government. It is all regulated unlike the states where all lakes depth charts are provided to the map chip makers. This is why the Canadian lake maps don't come in such high quality like the US maps.

[Kokanee9]

Here is the navionics link. Make sure you check the compatibility chart with whatever model you are considering. Their best chip only works in some sonar models. The lakes included are shown also.

http://www.navionics.com/Default.asp

[SushiUnagi]

Thanks very much EVERYONE for your expertise and the invaluable info! I think I will check out TFH this week. In fact I just found out they have 597 and HDS5 on sale from their spring fever sale.

Talking about Navionics, I noticed they have an app for the iPhone for 15 bucks and from all the info I have gathered its the same map as what you get if you buy their chip card, which costs over $150. I'm sure there must be some big differences otherwise they wouldn't sell the maps at 1/10th of the price. Anyone know much about it?

[bloopbloob]

Thanks very much EVERYONE for your expertise and the invaluable info! I think I will check out TFH this week. In fact I just found out they have 597 and HDS5 on sale from their spring fever sale.

Talking about Navionics, I noticed they have an app for the iPhone for 15 bucks and from all the info I have gathered its the same map as what you get if you buy their chip card, which costs over $150. I'm sure there must be some big differences otherwise they wouldn't sell the maps at 1/10th of the price. Anyone know much about it?

I bought that app this winter, and although I haven't used it much yet, only a couple ice fishing trips, it showed (very accurately) coal lake, pigeon lake, and wabamun for me. depths were very close (which surprised me), takes waypoints, marks spots, tracks routes etc, lots of features I never really tried out. But just for the bathymetrics alone, I'd pay the $15 it cost. hope to put it to better use soon, once the lakes open up.

[SushiUnagi]

I bought that app this winter, and although I haven't used it much yet, only a couple ice fishing trips, it showed (very accurately) coal lake, pigeon lake, and wabamun for me. depths were very close (which surprised me), takes waypoints, marks spots, tracks routes etc, lots of features I never really tried out. But just for the bathymetrics alone, I'd pay the $15 it cost. hope to put it to better use soon, once the lakes open up.

Thanks Bloop! Maybe I'll give it a shot too.

Too bad they don't have maps of much southern AB lakes. The one I know they have is Travers...but then there's no cell reception there to really use the GPS functionality...so it becomes no more than a bathymetry map on a smart phone.

[snowboarder86]

Thanks Bloop! Maybe I'll give it a shot too.

Too bad they don't have maps of much southern AB lakes. The one I know they have is Travers...but then there's no cell reception there to really use the GPS functionality...so it becomes no more than a bathymetry map on a smart phone.


The phone shouldn’t require cell reception for its GPS since it gathers it position from satellites it does however require it for the map data so unless you can cache the map into the phones memory (most mapping programs wont) your basically SOL anyways.... I have otherways of doing it though and It dosnt cost me anything