My LMS Died! Any Advice on new locater?

[Bison9]

Hey all,

well my old lorance LMS 350A finally crapped out on me this past weekend. She was about 12 years old. I had another one of these a couple years ago (two in my boat actually) and that one crapped out as well... They both went to not reading the depth in the upper left hand corner and it says either "Automatic" or "Manual" in the upper left with no depth. I fished Jewitt again this past weekend and all I had on my LMS was a barely readable line for the bottom and the depth chart on the right was still visible. It was enough to give me a depth, but this locater is definitely shot... So, I am going to buy and self install ( ) a new lorance. I would like to stay reasonable in price ($500 or less), but am looking for a good locator / GPS unit that can take lake map chips and can show contours of area lakes. What do you all suggest that I buy to fit this criterion? Also, are these newer lorance locators hard to self install? After some of the horror stories I read in the past from da Hitman, I am nervous! Thanks for any advice on this!

Also, I recently installed a cheap eagle locator in the front by the trolling motor on my boat. I first started with the transdeucer on the trolling motor and every time I stepped on the foot pedal, the depth would stop reading and it would flash until I let up. I then put all of my electronics on a separate battery, still the same problem. Then, I put the trandeucer out further from the propeller on a wood piece and still the same problem. So this weekend, I put the transdeucer back on a suction cup and put it way away from the trolling motor and still the same problem!! I am thinking now that since the wires that power my eagle locator and the two trolling motor wires run together to the back of the boat, the trolling motor electrical current is interfering with the locator feed. This has to be it. I can't think of anything else. Needless to say, I am going to spend a day this week separating those wires out and running them back to the battery in a separate area. What else can I do?

Any suggestions? My boat is working great otehrwise, but my locater issues are a pain right now! Thanks for any advice any of you can give and tight lines!

[Schmeckdawg]

I bought a lowrance 332c on a closeout this spring since it was last years model, I think for around $500 and installed it myself. I've been real happy with it thus far. The install wasn't too bad. By the way I got the puck GPS rather than the internal, I would definitely go that route. My brother has a unit that is two years older with the larger screen and had to send it back three times before they finally gave him a replacement, so I agree with some of the previous posts on this topic that there does seem to be some problems with some of them, but knock on wood mine's been ok so far. I use the lakemaster chip and that works pretty good too. I read some complaints online about the older color screens not being bright enough to read in broad daylight, but they have since fixed that as far as I can tell.

[BrianLucky13]

Call Reeds in Brainard. They are closing everything out now and you can get them cheap!!!!

My LMS 350 does that once in awhile and you can get it to work. I cant explain how but if you get rid of them I might take them of your hands!!!!

[zelek]

I'll be watching this thread closely as I'm soon to be in the market for a new graph as well. I have an old Lowrance x70A (about the same age as your LMS 350A Bison) that's just about ready to retire.

I've heard the x135 is a decent unit but it doesn't have GPS. That might mean fewer problems though and I'm considering going with it and staying with my handheld Garmin mounted right next to it.

[minneman]

Ive been a loyal Lorance guy for some 15 years, and currently own a 332 and am Very Happy so far! but to be honest, after reading all the negative posts on the internet here, and elseware about the terrible customer service as of late, and the fact that they purposly put different connectors (black,grey,blue,red) on every other year or so, or refuse to fix, to make units obsolete, forcing you to either upgrade or move on to a competitor's product, has me thinking that its time to take a serious look around at their competition next time im shopping for electronics.

I realize that you dont here much of the good stuff when it comes to the internet, but to me it sure seems like there are a lot of dissatisfied people out there with Lowrance products.

Knock on Wood

[Double A]

I don't think you'll find anything you're really satisfied with for less than $500. Using fishing logic, if you spend $600 and you use it for another 12 years, that's only $50 per year, pretty cheap for a new Lowrance.

Don't go without color. the contrast with color makes the fish come alive under the water.

The 522C iGPS is probably the base all-in-one unit and it lists at $600 at Reeds, then you need to buy the map (whole new topic) for $100. There's no limit to what you can spend, unfortunately the low end is $600.

I try to keep my fish cost at $100 / pound or less. I hadn't fished more than 2 hours and I had my 522c paid for!

[Bison9]

Hey guys, thanks for the posts... Brian, I think I will mess with the LMS modules a little more yet - especially if you have had luck with getting them to function again after acting weird!