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Posts: 73
Location: sw pa | what is the difference btetween the two? just asking cuz im going to purchase a humminbird 798c si and they offer the two. want to find out what is the better of the 2. |
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Posts: 2015
| I believe you are talking about an internal vs. external antenna on the unit. I don't know if "better" is the right term - It will depend on where you are wanting to mount the unit. (If you are mounting under something you will need an external antenna) Generally an internal antenna will work just fine and is one less thing to mount, I have Garmin and Lowrance units that have internal on each, work great.
Edited by IAJustin 2/16/2009 4:23 PM
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Posts: 73
Location: sw pa | thanks that helps aton! |
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Posts: 3480
Location: Elk River, Minnesota | yep...it's all about whether or not you have access to the sky when mounted. I have two mounted up on my rig (older ones...and not extremely high dollar). On the console, I have an external antenna since it does tuck under a tinted windshield (not that THAT would make much of a difference) plus they did not offer an internal antenna when I purchased it. The one at the bow is an internal antenna since nothing inhibits the ability to receive...
Steve |
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Posts: 402
Location: Eagle River, WI | with lowrance it makes a difference because you cannot network internal gps on theirs. I'm not sure about hummingbird though but it is something to think about if you are going to try ad network 2 units together. |
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Posts: 43
Location: Roch NY | I'd go external if I were mounting in-dash or anything short of clear sky. no reason to drop a grand and not have it work properly-the puck is the cheap part! prolly work OK most of the time, but potentially slow to acquire and might have periods of some lost signal depending where the Sats are positioned relative to your orientation.
I mounted mine with just some silicone -never a problem; but its also not in a spot that it gets bumped often either... |
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Posts: 95
| All lowrance gps unit with an internal antenna can also be used with a external antanna and they can be networked you just need to not power the antenna power wire on the units or unit with the internal antenna and use a network power wire with an external antenna. The lowrance units with the internal antenna don't work weel at all because the antenna is in the back of the unit if you tilt it back so the screen is facing up so you can see it while casting the antenna loses line of site with the sattelites and gps stops working. I would definately steer away from the internal antenna. |
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| I disagree with the above statement about Lowrances internal units not working well when tilted..yes, it is not best tilt them to horizontal but I have 3 of the units on 2 different boats and they all work great...zero problems...
One other thing to consider is that you will lose some accuracy if you network units together...ie, if the puck and sonar reading are taken from the back of the boat and you lay down an icon and it transfers the icon to the front unit, you will be as much as 20' off, or the distance from the front unit to the back puck/sonar...
for pure accuracy don't network them together and just transfer the data via chip.
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Posts: 95
| All the boats I set up I put the gps puck on nose of the boat this way no matter which unit you use to place a waypoint you know that waypoint is where the nose of your boat was and it also works better for sharing waypoints across the network there are alot of advantages to being able to share waypoints such as driving around with the big motor marking out structure then going back to cast it and your icons are on the front unit. There is a reason why lowrance only uses internal antennas on there lower end models. If it worked right they would use it on all there units |
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| esox riebe,
so you drive around laying icons, say you are coming up to a particular rock or weedline edge, you lay down an icon from the puck that is in the front of the boat, but your boat is reading the depth/structure at the BACK of the boat, so you lay down an icon that is in some cases depending on the size of the boat, possibly 20 feet off...that is my point...there are many cases where 2 feet can make a difference..using a chip and transferring data from the console unit to the bow unit is much more accurate..a bit of a pain but it gets easy once you thoroughly mark up a lake...
the best and most accurate way to mark stuff is not networked... |
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| esoxriebe, have you owned a newer unit with internal? the 1st ones did have an issue but I was told they reconfigured where or how the antenna works and the 3 I have plus the other 4 that my friends have work perfectly...I guess we just got lucky...I'm not sure I would call a $600 unit exactly "low end".. |
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| esoxriebe is exactly right. whn u have an internal gps in a lowrance and u tilt it up it cannot find all 3 satellites needed. |
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| I can and do tilt mine app. 30-45 degrees back and it does just fine....again, guess the ones I have are just special. ha. |
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Posts: 2015
| mine must be special too... |
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| my334 finds about 9 satelites, no matter how it's. Now that's special. |
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Posts: 32886
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | If the images I have seen of your boat are any indication, it could be the passengers blocking the signal...at least in ONE image I saw. |
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| How are the internal GPS recieves on locators any different from hand-held devices? I can hold my hand-held upside, backwards, under my left arm while spinning in circles & still get reception. The company boat has one of the cheap, Cuda fish finders w/ built in GPS that's around 5 years old it gets reception no problem no matter angel I put it at for viewing.
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Posts: 148
Location: Northwest Wi. | Ive got the Lowrance 5300c iGPS and the only proplem is that It will loose signal once in a while but not very often. I like the internal anteena becuse I can easily move it to the four wheeler and my truck for ice fishing or driving on a road trip. My unit is going on the forth year and still works well. |
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Posts: 95
| BN
I didn't want to upset you I am just trying to give some good feed back to joel and some things to think about with the different units. But I will tell you this it does not matter where your antenna is at in yor boat, the antenna position is relative to where your boat is this does not change the first or tenth time you go back to that place unless you move the antenna on your boat. Do you think navy vessels and cruise ships put antennas every 10 feet on there 500 foot long boats so they can navigate properly. what you are saying does not make sence. When you tilt your unit back on your boat go to status page and see how your position error changes and let me know how accurate you think they are. |
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| not upset at all....and you obviously don't understand what I am trying to say...what I said makes perfect sense...
if you lay down an icon that uses the depth reading from the BACK of the boat, but the puck/gps position is in the front...you are off by the distance from the puck to the transducer in the back...you don't get that?????
just trying to give feedback to those who want their position and data of what is actually below where they standing/positioned on the lake to be accurate....
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| as far as accuracy...well the ones I have are amazingly accurate...I can drive right to a small 10x10 crib where I put an icon down...once my boat is right over the icon, the crib is right below me on the sonar...so yes, they are accurate to within 10' or less...at least in my experience.... |
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| The antenna should be as close to the trancducer as possible bn is correct. |
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| When I am laying down icons on specific pieces of cabbage I cannot be 20 feet off. That would defeat the whole purpose in marking things. The antenna and the transducer need to be close together. |
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Posts: 1185
Location: Iowa | Having an internal GPS can be good and bad at the same time. The bad is that if you have internal and you mount your system up under a windshield similar to a lund style you can run into problems with the connection being clear at all times however when mounted to the front near a trolling motor there is that much less wiring you have to mess with. The external antenna allows you to mount the system anywhere on the boat and play with the margin for error that is accompanied by gps recievers. You can actual drastically shrink the margin for error with a gps determined postion by moving the external reciever around to different locations of the boat until the best margin for error is determined. I have seen as low as 7 ft variance on some professional fishermans boat like Johnnie Candle and Jim Carroll. It is really quite remarkable to see when done correctly. Johnnie is a humminbird guy and Jim a Lowrance. I have learned a ton from them over the past year.
Big Perc |
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Posts: 43
Location: Roch NY | FWIW- I have an external antenna and have never had a problem with it mounted under the windshield. not sure whether it would be different with an internal one |
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Posts: 2015
| you mounted the puck under the windshield? |
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Posts: 73
Location: sw pa | wow this is confusing!!!! i have a jet boat and want to mark paths where the skinny water is passable. i have a center console with a windshield on it and im going to mount it there. i should get external? you guys are def helping out,just want the right setup for what i have. thanks joel |
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| If it's just a windshield, you'll be fine. It's when you have a full cabin over the internal recievers when you run into a problem, such as big lake boats for salmon. Ever set a handheld in the dash of your car or wonder how your TomTom/Garmin/Whatever works under the windshield? Same thing going on there.
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Posts: 1185
Location: Iowa | In my opinion external would be the way to go...I deal with these things everyday and it seems people have more problems with internal systems and mounting them to correctly recieve a signal than with the external recievered models. Just my personal opinion. You do whatever you feel is best for your situation.
Big Perc |
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Posts: 73
Location: sw pa | apprec. the help guys. thanks ill figure it out |
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external and internal gps on a fishfinder?