GPS Plotter Recommendations

[Dave R]

Originally Posted by Rattletrap

Yes it works well .....last year was my first year on the lake and it did give me the confidence to explore. I will advise you that nothing replaces knowledge.

Cool, thanks! As easy as it is to plot a route with the standard cartography, I love the idea of auto-routing.

I think the dynamic lake level feature would have proven quite handy this year too, and that was one of the main reasons I was thinking about buying this product prior to a Lake Champlain cruise earlier this year. Champlain was down 2 feet below normal over the Summer. As it turned out, it was no big deal since it's a ridiculously deep lake without a whole lot of hazards. I only touched bottom once while gunkholing at very low speed a few miles up Otter Creek.

[Rattletrap]

Originally Posted by Dave R

Cool, thanks! As easy as it is to plot a route with the standard cartography, I love the idea of auto-routing.

I think the dynamic lake level feature would have proven quite handy this year too, and that was one of the main reasons I was thinking about buying this product prior to a Lake Champlain cruise earlier this year. Champlain was down 2 feet below normal over the Summer. As it turned out, it was no big deal since it's a ridiculously deep lake without a whole lot of hazards. I only touched bottom once while gunkholing at very low speed a few miles up Otter Creek.

I've been very happy with it like I said the auto routing is a help and easy to use

[CHSLTD]

I purchased a Raymarine Dragonfly 7 Pro with a Navionics+ card this weekend. Anyone use one, Dragonfly 5 or 7 pro on the lake?

[Guiness]

Wondering if you heard back on your question, I'm debating the purchase. Also seems like you can go Navionics or CMAP, I'm Winni only. Appreciate any thoughts.

Thanks

[Blyblvrd]

Originally Posted by CHSLTD

I purchased a Raymarine Dragonfly 7 Pro with a Navionics+ card this weekend. Anyone use one, Dragonfly 5 or 7 pro on the lake?

I purchased a Dragonfly 5 with Navionics map (I think thats the brand) from Irwin's marine. We were new to the lake as residence last year and only familiar with winni as passengers. August was our first summer as boat owners and 'captains' controlling our own fate.

The Dragonfly was awesome. Easy to use and clearly told us where to navigate around bouys, markers etc. We had no issues all season we were up there.

At first the breadcrumbs feature that lets you map previous route so you can follow the same path later was really helpful. We quickly learned the lake and now only use the GPS now when we are not sure or are in new parts of the lake.

It was also fun letting our kids drive while we sat with them. It allowed them to make decisions on their own and learn the lake as well.

A great purchase in my opinion.

[codeman671]

Resurrecting an old GPS thread. We just purchased a new (to us) boat that was a crappy old Lowrance 3500C in it, and are looking to upgrade. It will be going in a Rinker 320EC, flush mounted in place of the Lowrance, so I have a decent amount of space.

We may want to add radar at some point, but not needed at present. I was always a Standard Horizon fan, but it seems that they are focusing more on radios these days.

What are people suggesting these days?

[Dave R]

Originally Posted by codeman671

Resurrecting an old GPS thread. We just purchased a new (to us) boat that was a crappy old Lowrance 3500C in it, and are looking to upgrade. It will be going in a Rinker 320EC, flush mounted in place of the Lowrance, so I have a decent amount of space.

We may want to add radar at some point, but not needed at present. I was always a Standard Horizon fan, but it seems that they are focusing more on radios these days.

What are people suggesting these days?

I had a Standard Horizon, replaced it with a Garmin 741XS. LOVE the Garmin.

[Rich]

I've been thinking of updating my now old MFD, so I have been doing some shopping in preparation of if it dies, or has a problem.

My two contenders are the Garmin or the new Raymarine Axiom.

The Garmin is nice, but lately you're stuck using only their cartography (Charts). I don't know how responsive they are to reported errors of the charts, nor do I think they have as much detail as other charts.

The Raymarine Axiom seems MUCH quicker to draw on the screen, update during moving, and is generally more responsive when using it. It also allows for Navionics charts. I found the Navionics charts to be a derivative or related to the much loved Bizer charts of the lake. It also seems to have some more detail than the Garmin charts of the lake. I also like that Navionics is very responsive to chart errors when reported to them. They often will publish a fix to their charts within a week or two of a report and then you can download the new chart with the correction. You can review the Navionics coverage of the lake online to see if you like it: https://webapp.navionics.com/?lang=e...y=q%60ciGvnxrL

This sounds like it would be a no-brain choice for the Raymarine, but the Garmin seems to have a lot of transducers available, so depending on what you want or need, you may want to choose one or the other. I would love to use the Garmin 'forward looking' Sonar transducer, which can show rocks and hazards up to 300 IN FRONT of your boat, but it's a very pricey option, but certainly cheaper than any fiberglass, or I/O/Propeller repair!


Most people wills say to choose the chart that you like, and then buy the MFD that supports that chart. Further blurring the line is that Garmin recently (last year) purchased Navionics, and this implies that Garmin may support Navionics charts some time in the future. I recently contacted them to ask if they will support Garmin, but their answer just recently was that 'we're just now thinking about this, but can't give an answer as this time'. So no one can predict if all Garmin MFDs will support Navionics, or if only certain future models will allow it.

These days, I think most MFDs will serve basic navigation needs. Good luck with your choice!