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Chris Meyer, you're with Lowrance, you're one of the first guys to run this unit, tell
us what's so special about the Elite-7 HDI.
Chris: Elite-7 is the unit that has built in GPS, broadband sonar and down view. We
have 2 different price points so there is the $599 version that's going to come with
your HSD WSBL transducer.
Scott: So that's your standard Lowrance transducer?
Chris: Yep, sonar GPS. To get the down view for $699, you're going to get this HDI transducer.
If you buy the $599 version, you can always buy this transducer later and add it to the
Elite-7 HDI and then you'll have mapping, broadband sonar and down view.
Scott: So you have all of those things built into the HDI unit?
Chris: Yes sir.
DISPLAY & CAPABILITIES
Scott: The first thing I notice about this Elite-7 HDI is this big wide screen.
Chris: Yes the wide screen format is found in TV's, your I-pads, your tablets so it's
just a nice easy transition to start going towards the wide screen format. The nice part
about the wide screen format when we have this in a three panel split, you can have
your map, your traditional sonar, and you're down view and it fits real nicely on one screen.
The sonar built in is broadband sonar so it's the same sonar the HDS has and the down view
which is very similar to our down view and structure scan.
The GPS is internal, internal antenna. We can accept the Lowrance Insight pro card and
the Navionics premium cards as far as carphotography.
Scott: This unit has the capability for Insight Genesis mapping as well?
Chris: It does so if you are an Insight Genesis user, you can log your sonar data on this
unit, go back home on your computer and it will convert and make your own map. And that
map you can save on an SD card put right in your Elite-7, you're off and running Insight
Genesis.
POWER & NETWORKING
Chris: As far as connections on the back, you'll see there's NMEA 2000. NMEA 2000 in
the Elite-7 is for a way point transfer and LGC 4000 hook up only.
Scott: If I have 2 of these units, they can communicate back and forth?
Chris: Yes, you can share your weigh points back and forth between, say you have an HDS
or LCX LMS product, you can buy this, hook it in, add the NMEA 2000 and carry your weigh
points. When you mark one on here it will put it on your front unit and vice versa.
The power cord is the same power cord that HDS uses, that LCX LMS uses so you have let's
say a LCX 25 and it died. You can take this; put it in its place without having to do any
re-rigging of your boat.
Scott: So if I'm a Lowrance owner and I have blue plug connectors, I can connect it to
any existing blue plug that I have in the boat?
Chris: You got it. To get the down view, you need to add the HDI transducer which comes
in the $699 package. The $599 package comes with your traditional 83- 200.
INTERFACE & SETUP
Scott: The average guy going fishing, what are the things he should look for when he's taking the Elite-7
HDI out on the water for the very first time?
Chris: Press pages, you'll notice the new page layout. So we can have a full screen
structure, full screen broad band sonar, full screen GPS, sonar plus GPS, sonar plus down
view and our 3 panel page. I like the 3 panel page; it gives us 3 vertical columns. We have
our GPS, our traditional sonar and our down view. You can get on the water and get the
feel for what you want to see.
Scott: You know when I look at this wide screen unit; it's surprising how much screen space
is dedicated to each view. Do you have the capability to adjust that at all?
Chris: If you want to adjust all of these windows, this is the first elite product where
you have actually been able to customize your screens on what you're going to see and how
big they are. If you hit the pages and menu, you can go down and adjust your split to be
over under or side by side. You can adjust the chart panel page or the sonar panel page
depending on how you want to do that. So we want to have a little bigger chart page, we
hit enter on adjust chart panel and then we just take and slide it over. The sonar pages
will adjust equally.
Scott: So if I am navigating, I'm running water where my chart is very important to
me that I see the majority of that, I'm still not giving up my sonar reading or my down
scan reading.
Chris: You got it.
Scott: Let's go out and see how that sonar looks on the water.
Ok we've got 3 screens up like you suggested. So we're seeing our mapping page, we're seeing
our broad band sonar and we're seeing our down scan. How do I go from page to page to
page so I can adjust the different menus on those specific pages?
Chris: If you hit pages pages, it will rotate us to the next screen so now we are on our
map page. If I hit pages pages, it will bring us to our traditional sonar screen and if
we want to go to the down view, we hit pages pages and now we're on the down view.
Scott: And these units have the track back feature on them so I can go back and store
a weigh point, correct?
Chris: Yep so now we are sitting here trying not to, you know hit anyone, we can actually
take and scroll back in history and hit enter enter and now we just marked a weigh point
so we can go back to those fish.
Scott: So what I'm seeing now is a wide screen unit brought out by Lowrance, the Elite-7
HDI that gives you absolutely incredible detail.
Chris: Yes, you can count every single one of those fish.
Scott: Unbelievable.