Lowrance Elite 5 DSI

1978SeaRider · 03 April 2012, 09:41

Morning,

Just about to buy one of these... thought I'd have a quick check to see if anyone has one, has an opinion on them, or if any dealers on here would like my hard earned pennies ?

I will be using it mostly for bottom profiling prior to diving.

Thanks in advance

GaryC · 03 April 2012, 10:38

Sorry I dont want to hijack your thread but I am also considering the Lowrance Elite 5 but the M version. Does anyone know if it is "AIS Ready"

1978SeaRider · 03 April 2012, 11:46

No probs, what is AIS ready by the way ?

GaryC · 03 April 2012, 12:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by 1978SeaRider

No probs, what is AIS ready by the way ?

If you buy an AIS Class B Transponder, then you need to connect it in to a Chartplotter to display the other boats and relevant information. This is by NMEA0183 or indeed NMEA2000.

However even though the charplotter understand NMEA it does not always understand the AIS part of it. Newer sets are supposedly AIS ready so that you hook them together the plotter paints nice little boat pics on the chart.

I have a Navman 5500 which although nmea compatible is not AIS ready. So I think I need to get one that is and the Lowrance seems a good little box for the price. Although the navman takes C_MAP rather navionics.

THis is my limited understanding.

Gary

1978SeaRider · 03 April 2012, 17:10

you lost me at hello

bit beyond me technically I think

either way I've ordered mine today, should be here tomorrow and fitted friday... I'll let you know how I find it

jyasaki · 04 April 2012, 16:10

NMEA (either one) is a (fairly large) standard set of data, identified by words. So each bit of data will have a word saying what the data is (speed, for instance), followed by the value.

Most units do not recognize all words. Those they don't recognize are ignored. What Gary was saying was that his head unit is not set up to recognize AIS data. I would suspect that most consumer models are not (as AIS is relatively new.)

HTH,

jky

GaryC · 04 April 2012, 22:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by jyasaki

What Gary was saying was that his head unit is not set up to recognize AIS data. I would suspect that most consumer models are not (as AIS is relatively new.)

HTH,

jky

Indeed that is correct.
But what I have noticed is that some units say AIS ready. I was just wondering if the Elite 5M (and presumably the other stable mates) were AIS ready.

Gary