Lowrance Elite 7 HDI

[tennvols00]

Just bought the Lowrance Elite 7 HDI. Wanted to see if anyone on here had any experience with this unit. Looking forward to my first ever unit for my boat! Any feedback or advice on set up is appreciated! Thanks in advance

[spottedbass]

I would like to hear comments too. I have been back and forth on buying one. If you have one, do you use the chart plotter? The Elite 7X is cheaper and I can't decide if I would use the chart plotter or not.

[spottedbass]

I just purchased one from Cabelas. They have them on sale for $599 with transducer. Lowrance has a $100 mail-in rebate on them to right now. It is suppose to be here around April 18th.

[XxthejuicexX]

I have one, and my fishing partner has two of them on his boat. I love it. I think the sonar returns are better than on a humminbird unit. I use my chart for mapping locations to fish. My buddy uses his to run with to stay in the channels. I will say that sometimes the GPS will annoy you because it does not adjust very quickly. You will sometimes have to drive in a straight line quickly to get the unit to change you boat direction on your map.Here are a few pictures from the unit.

[tennvols00]

I know that this will help locate fish but would you say it has dramatically increased your catching of fish? Do you use the down scan more or less than the sonar?

[XxthejuicexX]

It has helped me Catch more fish. During the winter it allowed me to pinpoint deeper structure and locate Crappie. During the hot days of summer I can find schools of bass deep. I was able to know exactly where my bait was depth wise by using the sonar so I could keep it right out of the trees/brush this winter and catch more crappie. It helps locate active bass feeding during the hotter months, they look like fireworks shooting across the screen. The DI comes in handy when you are not sure what you are looking at. Like the pics I posted of the tree, you might think that those could be fish stacked up because they look like arches but if you switch to DI there is no question it's a tree. The DI is just there to supplement the traditional sonar, I use 2D sonar for everything.

[tennvols00]

How do you distinguish between crappie and bass or catfish? Thanks for the info. Really informative!

[XxthejuicexX]

By the way the fish stack up or orientate to the bottom. Bass don't usually stack up in the water column they will be parallel with the bottom. Sometimes on Guntersville in the summer you can almost get a false bottom because there will be so many Bass schooled up. Crappie will ball up more plus they do not have as large as of return on the sonar. I have not caught any catfish but I would assume that they will be sitting closer to the bottom also.

[Reel Tune]

Thanks for the picture juice.

[tennvols00]

Thanks again for the information! I'm anxiously awaiting the arrival and practice time!

[tennvols00]

Well I had the maiden voyage with the Elite 7 HDI. Took some photos with my camera as I am not sure yet how to capture a shot within the finder itself. I feel like I am a pretty techie person but this unit has me overwhelmed. Let me know what you guys think of the pictures. The fish seem to look more like globs than arches. It is mounted on the transom and I tried my best to put it in the exact location of the X-4 that came with my Lowe boat. I messed with the settings a ton and I feel like I did so much that I may need to just go back to factory reset settings! If anyone would post their settings I would great;y appreciate it. Any and all details you will give would work. I was at Laurel Hill lake for two hours just boating around and the GPS never pulled up anything other than an orange background. I didn't figure my Navionics Gold chip would have info for that lake but I guess I at least figured it would show a blue body of water?

[XxthejuicexX]

Looking at those pictures, the first one to me shows fish, most of them out at the far edge of the transducer beam but with some under it. As far as the GPS not finding you, did it ever pop up a message saying that your location was ever found? As far as setting I have mine on 83kHz and I think surface clarity low and Noise reduction on medium. My fishing partner runs his on 200 with noise on low and surface clarity off he says that he thinks you spot fish closer to the surface that way, I don't like all the clutter on the screen. I am not looking for fish 3' down with my sonar.

[nomad60]

Check out the settings here: http://www.bbcboards.net/lowrance-garmin-sonar-gps/389547-elite-7-question-about-dsi.html

Those are the settings I am using for my Elite 7x and they are a great starting point, you can fine tune from there.

[spottedbass]

I had mine on the water for the first time yesterday. I love it. I went to some areas where I knew there were rock piles just so I could see them on the DSI. It was great. Then I when to another spot where I thought there was some brush. I had to move around a little then BINGO!! A tree or a brush pile with limbs sticking up. I used the backtrack feature and set a waypoint on it. I then drifted away and used the chartplotter to navigate back to it. It got me close but I still had to search for the tree. Does anyone have any tips about marking waypoints like this?

I also used the settings from the link below as a starting point. I still wish it was marking fish better. Maybe I just wasn't on any fish to mark. I still need to tweak it some. I was able to drop a jig down next to the trolling motor and see it on the sonar. That was cool.

So far so good.

[Reel Tune]

Well you guys talked me into it. I ordered an Elite 7 CHIRP yesterday. I was going to go with the HDS, but didn't want to have to bother with the Structure Scan module.

[XxthejuicexX]

Welcome to the club! Is the chirp sonar similar to the Garmin?

[Reel Tune]

I don't know. It's new just come out this month, and supposed to be better.

Guess I'll be finding out soon. A buddy of mine who we regularly fish together has the Elite 5 DSI, so I guess we'll have to do a side by side comparison. We did it with his Elite 5 DSI, and my Elite 4, now it's time to see if there is any advantage in the Elite 7 CHIRP.

Here is a take from the Lowrance site

- Easier to identify and distinguish bait and game fish targets
- Better target identification at greater depths
- Mark fish clearly at faster boat speeds
Exclusive Lowrance Elite-7 CHIRP advantages:
- Multiple CHIRP ranges from a single transducer
- CHIRP sonar performance with a greater number of affordable transducers, including the Lowrance HDI Skimmer®
- View multiple CHIRP sonar settings on one display

DownScan Imaging™ provides picture-like images of fish-holding structure beneath a boat.
Selectable single-frequency sonar operation with award-winning Broadband Sounder™ performance.
Highly accurate, built-in GPS antenna plus a detailed U.S. map featuring more than 3,000 lakes and rivers and coastal contours to 1,000 feet.

[XxthejuicexX]

You will love the 7" screen if you are stepping up from the 4". Get some pics and post if you don't mind.

[Reel Tune]

THat's what I'm hoping. I can tell a big difference between the 4 and my buddies 5, and a big difference between the regular Elite and DSI. Hopefully it will be in before the Bledsoe Creek Event. Monday I'll pick up the battery 18Ah. The rest of the week when time allows I'll pick up everything else I need.

[Alphahawk]

CHIRP is CHIRP......unless as some claim Garmin is not using true CHIRP technology. But unless one has some really good test equipment no one can say if that is so. You will see a much more detailed sonar return with CHIRP. It does it by transmitting multiple frequencies from the low to the high range.....where as non CHIRP sonar is just transmitting one frequency....or maybe two. CHIRP broadcast a range of frequencies from high to low or low to high.....to paint a much more detailed image. This has been used in radars for some time. Gave us a much better info of the target and started being used in phased array radars.....my experience with it was in the PATRIOT System....except we called it pulse compression.....but it is same thing. Bottom line you will get a great looking image. You should be able to see individual bait instead of say a bait ball.



Regards

[tkwalker]

CHIRP is CHIRP......unless as some claim Garmin is not using true CHIRP technology. But unless one has some really good test equipment no one can say if that is so. You will see a much more detailed sonar return with CHIRP. It does it by transmitting multiple frequencies from the low to the high range.....where as non CHIRP sonar is just transmitting one frequency....or maybe two. CHIRP broadcast a range of frequencies from high to low or low to high.....to paint a much more detailed image. This has been used in radars for some time. Gave us a much better info of the target and started being used in phased array radars.....my experience with it was in the PATRIOT System....except we called it pulse compression.....but it is same thing. Bottom line you will get a great looking image. You should be able to see individual bait instead of say a bait ball.



Regards

Randy, Same technology we use in Viet Nam in Airborne ECM (Electronic Counter Measures ) I am sure more refined now ... This was tried on us by the Russians in 1968 when the SAM Missile sites was trying to lock on to us while we were orbiting (EB-66's) to protect the F-4's from the SAMS during their strike objective .. They kept Ramping there Frequencies to avoid us ... So we did one better ...

We took their signal, phase shifted 180 deg's. modulated it with noise and sent it back to them at thousands of more watts that their receiver was expecting ... Since they were varying their frequencies we had to go up and down the band ... Using magnetrons, Backward Wave Oscillators (Carcentrons) , TWT's ... etc ... Hopefully frying their screen !!!

And No, those where not the good old days I want to relive ... It wasn't fun to watch a missile heading for you or the F-4 you were sent up there to protect ... You could not have drove a straight pin up my butt !! ... :eek:

Sorry, Chirp just released an old Memory bank that has not been opened for 45 years ... <'TK>< :)

[tennvols00]

Had mine out on the TN river yesterday. I can really tell how this unit will improve my fishing success. Pictures are clear when you are around fish. I still get some interference from time to time but being able to use regular sonar and down scan side by side helps to remove any doubt of debris Vs fish. Found multiple bait balls too. My only complaint is that the unit has shut off twice while in use and it does not want to pick up information like depth past 15-20 mph. I had read where some owners said theirs would track depth at speeds up to 40mph.

[tennvols00]

Another pic

[XxthejuicexX]

those are good pics, lots of bait. Mine used to shut off at times, I opened my front console up and found a loose wire that was causing it. Yours could be as simple as that.

[XxthejuicexX]

MidTN how is that Chirp Sonar? I forgot about you getting it until I was digging through the old post.

[hotwielen65]

I put my HB on a separate atv battery, I was having the same problem when talked to HB tech and they asked if my power source was the trolling motor batteries, the voltage drop when I would hit the trolling motor was causing the HB to shut off. Since putting it on a separate battery the problem has quit, unless I don't charge the battery for a month. Just a thought.

Ray

[tennvols00]

I have been using a lawn mower battery to power mine and it has performed well. It has shut off a time or two but I think it was due to poor connection on the terminals. Overall I love it.

[Reel Tune]

MidTN how is that Chirp Sonar? I forgot about you getting it until I was digging through the old post.

It's awesome. Great definition and clarity, the screen is of excellent size not to big and not to small. The unit is very user friendly. I have no complaints.