I think I did good

[reelapeelin]

Worst Marine's got the 527 DF for 700 so if ya got 'er for 650 ya did OK...probably coulda done better pricewise on E-Bay, but I wouldn't have gone there either... the A-Hole in BW oughtta be tarred & feathered ;) ... yer gonna like that unit...it's an updated version of my 337 ... 8) ...

If ya wanna learn how to use it, get your Owners Manual and go here:

http://www.lowrance.com/Downloads/Emulators/default.asp

Find your unit, download it and you can perform any function ....

[turbinedoctor]

that is the big brother to my LMS 334, which I like alot. I also recomend that yoy get the Nautic path chip for it, in my neck of the world it is pretty accurate.

Like RAP said get the emulator for it and play with it on your laptop, great learning tool. The split screens are nice too.

Dont forget to connect it to your radio if your radio is DCS capable.

Thanks guys, I saw resin @ home depot by the quart for $20 and figured I was doing ok. Maybe I need to look into this a bit further or just make an offer on menecers and continue shopping around.

I liked the mob and that it would link to a radio, I'm in the market for one and haven't yet decided. Wifey cringes everytime I get on ebay but I can't bring myself to buy electronics on the net. All a mute point, I haven't had a rain free day to work on getting my boat any closer to the water in over a week. All in good time I guess. Til then I'l live enjoy by proxy reading you guys fishing tails. The FLW was here this weekend for a king turny wonder how that went.

[turbinedoctor]

The key to a good radio set up is the antenna. If you are on a budget, spend more on the antenna then the radio.

All fix mount radios are limited to 25watts transmit power so you are olny talking about the bells and whistles after that. Antenna on the other hand are a different subject.

Read and learn about them before you buy, but what ever you decide get a higher end antenna

[spareparts]

i've heard the Gamm digital antenna can't be beat for the price, haven't tried one yet but its on my list

[turbinedoctor]

I went with the Shakspere 5102 antenna and the Icom 422 radio. After I installed them and on my first trip out I did a radio check and was talking to a guy 70 miles away crystal clear. I was and still am very happy with my set up.

Make sure to cut off the extra footage of cable from the antenna but make sure you leave a little slack when you route it to the radio and then solder the connector on. Making sure you have good connections and routing you cable proper is the key to good reception and transmitting power.

So you're saying too much extra cable will cause bad transmissions? I didn't know, definetly something to think about tho, thanks.