Lowrance Radar/GPS/Sonar

[rogerbum]

I know there were some recent questions about Furuno vs Garmin that had a few mentions of Lowrance. I bought a radar arch at the factory garage sale and now need to buy the radar. There's a lot of possible options out there. I'm hoping to keep the total cost <$2500. I could go with the cheapest option of the Furuno B&W LCD radars (stand alone units around $1200-1500).

If I want radar overlayed on the GPS map, I need a networking type system. I had a chance to play around with Dr. John's fancy Raymarine unit but really didn't like the user interface - way more complicated and less intuitive than my Garmin. So while it would do the job fabulously, I think I'd be annoyed by the menuing system that seems poorly designed to me.

Garmin has radar now so I could get a Garmin unit but the Garmin radar doesn't seem to get high marks. That leave Furuno and Lowrance. The new Lowrance units look fairly slick to me. I'm considering the LCX 26, 28 or 38C HD units + the 4Kw radar unit - LRA-2000. Does anyone have one of these units? How do you like it? How simple/intelligently designed is the user interface? Anybody who is coming to Poulsbo or Cathlamet have one of these? I'd like to spend 30 mins pushing buttons before I drop that kind of change.

[thataway]

I am not real big on radar overlay. But I have been using Radar for over 30 years.....so old dogs... I have the Furuno Radar, and have used Furuno 75% of the time on my boats. I have a 7" screen, and feel that 7" is pretty close of a minimum size. If you have a 7" chart plotter screen and split it for Radar, numbers, chart plotter and fishfinder, you have 4 small segments, which are probably not real readable.

I have Lowrance LCX 26 C chart plotter, and really like it. (the new has more lake maps, and a few other improvments, but no Radar overlay.)
Lowrance is now allied with Simrad and Northstar, so I would see some very good products there.

Garmin is comming out with an entirely new line this spring. I would wait for the New Garmin line (see it at the boat shows--but with any new technology--there may be glitches).

I have 7" Radar,plus two separate 7" chart plotters/depth finders.