Lowrance HDS-8m - use and interconnection?

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neil1967

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I am considering buying a lowrance hds-8m Gen 2 chart plotter for my yacht, which will eventually be used for coastal and occasional offshore cruising. I have garmin instruments (nmea 2000) and would like to add AIS at a later date, either as a standalone unit or integrated with a radio (possibly standard horizon). I would be grateful for any views on the hds-8m gen 2 in general, and specifically on interfacing it to other manufacturers equipment.

Thanks

Neil
 
I've had an HDS 7m gen 1 for a few years. Very easy to interconnect via NMEA2000. I have a Comar AIS 2-2000 rx, it was simple to link to the plotter. I use Navionics platinum charts.
One thing I did do was to get an LGC4000 GPS to link to the 7m. This gives improved accuracy over the internal GPS, dead easy to instal via the N2K bus as per the AIS and quicker refresh rate with the gen2 sets.
Edit
If you do buy one you can update the software from here..
http://www.lowrance.com/en-GB/Software-Updates/
 
Last edited:
Lgc4000 now superceded by point-1 which can do 10hz updates compared to 5hz on Lgc4000 and also provides heading information for radar overlay.
 
I've had a HD7M for a couple of years. Pluses: good screen res, excellent daylight visibility. Minus: no speed filter: momentary speed and heading are displayed, both of which thus leap about wildly as the boat yaws, surfs etc. Ordinarily this would be a minor irritant, but with AIS it becomes an utter pain, triggering lots of spurious CPA alarms. Indeed, it sometimes triggers them so often there isn't time to go through the clumsy menu to cancel one before the next one sounds.

Incidentally, the alarm...Lowrance call it a "siren"...is a pathetic beep.

I'd urge you to check whether the HDS-8 is similarly afflicted.
 
macd said:
I've had a HD7M for a couple of years. Pluses: good screen res, excellent daylight visibility. Minus: no speed filter: momentary speed and heading are displayed, both of which thus leap about wildly as the boat yaws, surfs etc. Ordinarily this would be a minor irritant, but with AIS it becomes an utter pain, triggering lots of spurious CPA alarms. Indeed, it sometimes triggers them so often there isn't time to go through the clumsy menu to cancel one before the next one sounds.

Incidentally, the alarm...Lowrance call it a "siren"...is a pathetic beep.

I'd urge you to check whether the HDS-8 is similarly afflicted.
Click to expand...

My HDS 7m behaves perfectly,then so does my long keeled boat :) :)
 
Daydream believer said:
But then there are a few long keeled boats that go so slow the AIS etc would have no problem keeping up - yaw or no yaw:):)
Wait till you get that Centaur- once that outboard starts buzzing you may have a different view of things:)
Click to expand...

My forum name is dylan. I think you are referring to someone who's forum name, though rarely referred to as such, is dylanwinter. :)
 
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