Hi John,
I joined the Bassing community but my account has not been activated yet. So I am going to use this forum.
You have helped me recently with some good advice (by email) and convinced me to buy a HDS-7 Gen 2 Touch which I will probably order through you. Thanks!
My application is saltwater and I will go with a HST-DFSBL transducer because it has a slightly lower (lower end) transmission frequency and should therefore penetrate the saltwater a bit better (Is this choice correct?).
One of my questions you did not answer to my satisfaction (probably because you are in no position to do so and I do not blame you for it). This concerns the Insight Genesis requirement for making my own depth maps. I would like to put this out there to see what the members on the Sealine community think. Reading your post on the Bass community (see quote below) I am of the opinion that we have a lot of negative whammies here:
- You buy a nice HDS unit,
[/*]
- then you use it at great cost (petrol) to map a nice reef.
[/*]
- Then you have to pay membership fees to Lowrance for them to make a depth map with your data,
[/*]
- after which they sell it back to you to load on your own unit,
[/*]
- oh yes and then they own the copyright to your data and can resell it to anyone.[/*]
Surely they are stealing your data and then selling it back to you and others to make money, which is a blatant breach of copyright (Instagram?).
I am sorry but this puts a hold on my decision for buying a Lowrance system, until clarified.
John, seems you are close to these guys, will you kindly ask them if there is a plan B.
John wrote on the Bass community forum:
"
So the only solution left was creating one's own charts with the likes of programs such as DrDepth which create .LCM charts. These charts are created by logging the data on your Lowrance, feeding the data into a PC/Laptop, then creating a chart for the Lowrance Chart Plotters. Unfortunately the support for LCM from the Lowrance Team have come to an end since the launch of V2.0, and now V2.1 software for the HDS range. DrDepth has since been bought out by Johnson Outdoors and was released at ICAST2013 in the form of AutoChart by LakeMaster.
This leaves users outside of the U.S with absolutely NO CHOICE, but to sign up with Insight Genesis or switch back to the 'other' brand.
"So why is Insight Genesis such a hard pill to swallow?"
1. Over the next 10 years (if there is NO price increase), IG will cost each user $2990.
2. All data that is logged (this is very expensive if doing it on a bass boat) has to be uploaded to IG server and all rights to the data is lost to Lowrance.
3. Areas that were logged on units 'other' than Lowrance now have to be re-logged because IG only accepts .slg and .sl2 formats.
4. IG is what DrDepth was five years ago when it comes to tools and features.
5. Every time you buy a new unit, or is replaced under warranty, you have to regenerate a chart for that specific unit.
6. The new 'Chart Sharing' feature on V2.0 & V2.1 does not work with IG, a separate chart has to be created for each unit on the boat.
7. IG charts themselves are a bit 'glitchy', even with the V2.1 software.
8. And the scariest thing of all - What is Lowrance going to do with all this data they are accumulating? "
vvbafvv
Fishton When I am in Durban on thurday maybe you can come have a look at my setup and see if its all good and Just a quike "show how it works"