Simrad vs all the rest

[Drummer]

Does anybody have on the water experience with a Simrad Go9? I have read all about them and like what I see, but I rarely fall for marketing fluff alone. Would love to hear some actual experiences. Looks like water temperature is not an option. Also, they have a $200 rebate right now. All thoughts welcomed. 

[BradM]

I have zero first hand experience, Drummer. I really wanted a Simrad on my boat because all of the hype, but my boat came with a Garmin. I'm fine with that because that's what I'm used to....I have a friend who has a popular brand boat, and he said the other day that his manufacturer is dropping Simrad going into the 2019 model year because of continuous problems and pure lack of customer service from Simrad. His boat is an earlier model of his brand, and has a Garmin, too. I would do some more research before buying.

 

 

[Lurchy]

I got a simrad go9 on mt pathfinder a few months back.  I love it compared to my old model lowrance I had from the previous owner (probably a 2004 model).  I got the Florida Marine Tracks chip which makes running anywhere inshore in south florida a breeze (setup was also very easy).  For offshore, the preloaded Insight Plus is fair enough.  Still playing around with the sounder but it is a big improvement.  Sidescan was big on my list but it needs some improvement as far as I can tell, need to play around with it some more.  I'd say go for it, relatively inexpensive, but first rate unit.

[blackacre]

My current setup is a GO7 XSE running the FMT Chip, and a Garmin 841 XS. The Garmin is easier to use, perhaps I'm more familiar with the software from years of using Garmin products. However, Garmin mapping is terrible for inshore. The Garmin mapping software constantly shows you on land when you are fishing 2' of water.

The FMT satellite images are awesome and very accurate. A game changer in the way I fish new areas. 

If you are going to run one unit I would go with the GO9 or the HDS 9 Gen 3, with the FMT chip and a totalscan transducer. I'm pretty sure the G09 displays water temperature. I do not have a transducer hooked up to my Go7.

[Wanaflatsfish]

I was a Garmin user for over 10 years...once they decided it was time to make revenue on map enhancements....it was all over....the last good inshore map was the 740.

I had a 3209 and 741XS....both very good units; however, they do not compare to the Simrad.  I have the EVO2, 9" and it's amazing - so is the price $$$$

but, if you use the FMT chip as mentioned above...it's a game changer.  I see the other posters above are using the XO's...however, if you are using the FMT chip, it was recommended by FMT to go with the EVO series to allow you to use the on front Knob for scrolling in and out, vs the +/- on the screen...but, if it works, it's a significant discount in price vs the EVO2 or EVO3 series.

DC

[Lurchy]

I do get water temp displayed on my GO9 unit as well.  I am thinking about getting an additional chip with more bottom detail for out on the reef and offshore..  Can anyone recommend anything for that??

[BrownBear]

Long time lurker, finally moved to reply. We got the GO7 XSE with Total Scan and the Navionics chip on our new Refisher 18 back in November.

Water temp on ours displays on the sounder screen, but not the chart screen.

Frankly I HATE the touch screen.  If you're under way with even a little bounce, you have to brace your hand before even touching the screen.  All kinds of wonky things happen with a double tap, and heaven forbid you hit it in the wrong spot.  You can figure out how to get back to where you want to be with a little bit of practice, but you have to learn how to recover from lots of unplanned screen changes. 

Other issues, the unit seems to lose faith in the Navionics chip if you tap the screen wrong, switching to some half-baked blocky intermediate screen with every island a square or triangle, no soundings, and darned little else on the nav screen.  You have two options. Simply shutting down and restarting the GO7 won't reboot the Navionics chip. You literally have to shut down and depower the boat to get a startup screen that lets you go back to the full features of the Navionics chip. Other option is to simply go to the base charts installed on the GO7. Not a happy camper with that at all.

Then there's the transducer.  It's real cranky about any kind of interference around it.  Drop the trim tab a little and you lose bottom. Scratch your nose wrong and you lose bottom.  It eventually finds bottom again, but it's likely to spend some time telling you that you're in 220' of water before it gets back around to the true couple of feet you're really in.

I'm about two shutdowns away from tossing it.

[Nick2400TRS]

I have a go9xse and am very pleased.  I have the navionics plat+ chip and also had to buy the hotmaps for inshore and lake detail.  It holds 2 chips so no problem there.  

The depth finder works fine for me except when I exceed 40-45mph I lose the bottom.  I’ve never played with side scan so can’t help you there.  It displays water temp and if you buy a cable for around $100 it will display very detailed engine info.  

[Nick2400TRS]

2 minutes ago, BrownBear said:

Long time lurker, finally moved to reply. We got the GO7 XSE with Total Scan and the Navionics chip on our new Refisher 18 back in November.

Water temp on ours displays on the sounder screen, but not the chart screen.

Frankly I HATE the touch screen.  If you're under way with even a little bounce, you have to brace your hand before even touching the screen.  All kinds of wonky things happen with a double tap, and heaven forbid you hit it in the wrong spot.  You can figure out how to get back to where you want to be with a little bit of practice, but you have to learn how to recover from lots of unplanned screen changes. 

Other issues, the unit seems to lose faith in the Navionics chip if you tap the screen wrong, switching to some half-baked blocky intermediate screen with every island a square or triangle, no soundings, and darned little else on the nav screen.  You have two options. Simply shutting down and restarting the GO7 won't reboot the Navionics chip. You literally have to shut down and depower the boat to get a startup screen that lets you go back to the full features of the Navionics chip. Other option is to simply go to the base charts installed on the GO7. Not a happy camper with that at all.

Then there's the transducer.  It's real cranky about any kind of interference around it.  Drop the trim tab a little and you lose bottom. Scratch your nose wrong and you lose bottom.  It eventually finds bottom again, but it's likely to spend some time telling you that you're in 220' of water before it gets back around to the true couple of feet you're really in.

I'm about two shutdowns away from tossing it.

Sounds like you need to adjust your transducer mounting location.  I don’t have any of those problems

[BrownBear]

Not a lot of options with the trim tabs right there.  The bigger issue sending me to another brand is the Navionics rodeo.

[Nick2400TRS]

I have 2 navionics chips and don’t have issues.  Maybe you have a lemon unit??  Have you called Simrad?

[BrownBear]

Talking to the shop where I bought it right now. If they can't sort it I'll go right to Simrad. Pretty wonky.  I've used Simrad on large offshore boats for the last 30 years with the kind of happiness that sent me to them for the little boat.

[JEM]

17 minutes ago, BrownBear said:

Long time lurker, finally moved to reply. We got the GO7 XSE with Total Scan and the Navionics chip on our new Refisher 18 back in November.

Water temp on ours displays on the sounder screen, but not the chart screen.

Frankly I HATE the touch screen.  If you're under way with even a little bounce, you have to brace your hand before even touching the screen.  All kinds of wonky things happen with a double tap, and heaven forbid you hit it in the wrong spot.  You can figure out how to get back to where you want to be with a little bit of practice, but you have to learn how to recover from lots of unplanned screen changes. 

Other issues, the unit seems to lose faith in the Navionics chip if you tap the screen wrong, switching to some half-baked blocky intermediate screen with every island a square or triangle, no soundings, and darned little else on the nav screen.  You have two options. Simply shutting down and restarting the GO7 won't reboot the Navionics chip. You literally have to shut down and depower the boat to get a startup screen that lets you go back to the full features of the Navionics chip. Other option is to simply go to the base charts installed on the GO7. Not a happy camper with that at all.

Then there's the transducer.  It's real cranky about any kind of interference around it.  Drop the trim tab a little and you lose bottom. Scratch your nose wrong and you lose bottom.  It eventually finds bottom again, but it's likely to spend some time telling you that you're in 220' of water before it gets back around to the true couple of feet you're really in.

I'm about two shutdowns away from tossing it.

Wow.  I know it is not funny, but I got a kick out of reading your review!  LOL  Shut the whole boat down!!!!!  LOL

[BrownBear]

1 hour ago, JEM said:

Wow.  I know it is not funny, but I got a kick out of reading your review!  LOL  Shut the whole boat down!!!!!  LOL

Yup. Simply powering down the Simrad and restarting it won't do the job.  Stop, shut the boat down, shut off the battery, repower it, and when you repower the Simrad it says it's detected the Navionics chip and asks if you want to use it.  Weird, weird, weird.....  Got the guys in the shop (long time Simrad shop)  scratching their heads too.  They've never even heard of anything like it, so likely a wonky unit.  Testing to follow.

[FLDXT]

I have an evo2, just installed the totalscan andnit seems much less finicky than the airmar. I also just did an update and Simrads update seemed to hmmm help the mapping quite a bit. I do not like the touchscreen either, hate my fingerprints all over the screen. 

[wthree3]

Simrad NSS on my Master Angler. Absolute best selling feature on the NSS and Evo series Simrads is the rotary knob at the top tight of the machine. With one hand braced on the  corner of the machine you can zoom in out,  scoll through menus and select any function using the knob and the few buttons around it. So much better than trying to use a touch screen when running.

[geeviam]

6 hours ago, BrownBear said:

Then there's the transducer.  It's real cranky about any kind of interference around it.  Drop the trim tab a little and you lose bottom. Scratch your nose wrong and you lose bottom.  It eventually finds bottom again, but it's likely to spend some time telling you that you're in 220' of water before it gets back around to the true couple of feet you're really in.

I'm in the process of installing a Lowrance HDS Carbon 9 so I can't help with experience yet.  But, I can tell you that the "cheese grater" live well pick-up on your Redfisher creates a lot of turbulence and bubbles.  If your transducer is in line with it, or even near it, you might try moving the transducer to the opposite side to get it into cleaner water.

[Vaca Cut]

I have the Simrad GO9 xse with the Total Scan transducer on my Redfisher. Also have the Navionics + chip and the unit performs perfectly for me. Down scan, side scan, temp readings no issues at all. Took some tweaking to get my Transducer set at the correct height but reads bottom at high speeds without issues.  Using side scan you want to stay under 10 knots for an effective reading. Very happy with my unit which was a great upgrade over my Garmin.

[ASB]

On 5/9/2018 at 7:42 PM, Vaca Cut said:

I have the Simrad GO9 xse with the Total Scan transducer on my Redfisher. Also have the Navionics + chip and the unit performs perfectly for me. Down scan, side scan, temp readings no issues at all. Took some tweaking to get my Transducer set at the correct height but reads bottom at high speeds without issues.  Using side scan you want to stay under 10 knots for an effective reading. Very happy with my unit which was a great upgrade over my Garmin.

Does your side scan read on both sides?

i heard if the transducer is mounted on the transom that your motor is interfering with one side of the side scan??

[Vaca Cut]

ASB, flats rat, yes it does read clearly on both sides. I have my transducer mounted on the step ahead of the outboard on the port side of my drain plug. That eliminates the lower unit blocking one side of the side scan.