GPS/Sonar Unit

[duckiller2]

What can anyone tell me about a Lowrance 334c color depthfinder and GPS. I hear talk that they do not work well through the windshield. Something with the reception/ antena. Thinking for my fishing boat no windshield or my wheeler on the ice no windshield.

[fishyj]

Must have an internal intenna for the gps. I ran one for years on the console behind the windshield, never had any problems with reception. Make sure the unit has the recent updates, which should still be available. Lowrance does not repair these units anymore. They can be traded in for the newer compatible unit but I heard it's rather pricey. Though I had good luck with mine I know some guys had trouble with transducers going bad.

[steve l]

I have the 522C which is the later version of the 334C. It hasn't failed me yet, though I run it on a tiller boat. I spoke with a Lowrance rep this past Saturday @ the sport show and asked him specifically if Lowrance will still support(service) the LMS series which include the 334 and my 522 unit(s) and he said yes for another 4-5 years. So Lowrance will repair and service as well as update the software. His words, not mine. Great unit!

[duckiller2]

Thanks guys for the info Not sure what I will do yet good info though Thanks again

[WalligatorGetter]

Hey, you were telling me the other day that you were interested in a 334, but you never asked me if I knew anything about them. I’ve never used a 334, but I’ve been using my grandpa’s, nearly identical, 339 for a few years.

I wish that I could say that it is a great unit, but I can’t. If I was to describe it in one word, it would be “buggy.” From day one that unit has had software issues. The biggest problem is a bug in it that causes it to lose position all the time, even though it claims to be receiving a signal from 7-10 different satellites, which should give it accuracy within 3 meters. When it does this, I simply restart it and it works fine again for a little while.

The second software issue that it has is that sometimes it won’t let me access the second menu. If you haven’t used a Lowrance, you press the menu button once and a menu page pops up, press it again and the second of the two menu pages pops up. What happens sometimes is I press the button and the first menu pops up, but when I press it again it just disappears instead of the second menu popping up. The way to temporarily fix this is to do a “soft reset.” You hold a combination of buttons and the unit restores all defaults, but keeps waypoints. You can also do a "hard reset" that wipes out everything.

On top of the software issues, it also has a couple of mechanical issues. One nearly harmless one is that the lights that illuminate the buttons are burning out one by one. The other, not so harmless, issue that just started this past year is that the unit turns its self on all the time. I would turn it off at the launch and go out in the garage a couple days later and hear the transducer clicking. Now I just unplug the unit when I leave the launch. No big deal, but still a pain in the butt.

I wish that I could say good things like most other people do, because I’m sure Lowrance makes good fish finders. I’m sure that my grandpa simply got a bad unit, and that this kind of stuff is not typical.

[duckiller2]

Thanks Tim Should have asked you in the boat would have given us more to talk about while we were drowning minnows.