HDS 5 Info

19X · Post by **19X** » Mon Oct 04, 2010 5:14 am

I'm looking at purchasing the HDS 5 w/GPS. There seems to be alot of bad reviews on Lowrance customer service after the sale. I know alot of you RICH bass turds have bought these new units. Any advice or input would be great...
Thanks
Dave Poolman

mark poulson · Post by **mark poulson** » Mon Oct 04, 2010 5:29 am

Call Rick at Anglers and ask him about it. He's a Lowrance guru.
I bought my HD5 on sale at BPS, and Rick helped me set it up, and he and Jordan walked me through how to use it.
(714) 666-2628

cLanderman · Post by **cLanderman** » Mon Oct 04, 2010 7:06 am

I have an HDS5 and love it... great investment. Can not speak to the service at Lowrance though as mine has not had a single issue since I installed it.

S. Bailey · Post by **S. Bailey** » Mon Oct 04, 2010 8:08 am

whats up Dave ? hope all is good. I like the HDS 5 but just had a brand new one go out on me for no reason . Or maybe the reason was that rain we got at roosavelt . Either way its brand new and out of service. Nothing like trying to find all your waypoints with no graph !! so I would recommend it but def keep it out of the rain !!!

Ken Sauret · Post by **Ken Sauret** » Mon Oct 04, 2010 8:23 am

Lowrance has addressed the customer service issue. With the new HDS units coming out and the great response from the public Lowrance has had to add customer service representatives, they added 18. This takes time to train them to be competent on the new product. That process is done, they are in place and the wait times are way down so don't be afraid to call. I understand that wait times are usually under 5 minutes. Try to avoid Mondays as everyone who goes out fishing over the weekend all across the nation is calling with every question you can imagine, from menu questions to settings questions. If you have those kind of questions after you purchase an HDS unit just post them here and I will be happy to answer them. In this way everyone reading the thread will benefit from the answer.

As for the water problem, that was one run of units and until you get them into hard rain they don't leak, when they do call customer service and get a return authorization number and the warranty will kick in. All the units coming out for the last 6 or 8 months are fine as they take a few out of each run and put them through rigorous testing to make sure there are no future issues.

Lowrance has a $50.00 rebate right now on the HDS 5's so it is a good time to look at them. Rick Grover at Anglers is a great dealer to give advise for purchase and installation, that was great advise Mark!

19X · Post by **19X** » Mon Oct 04, 2010 11:22 am

Thanks for all the input. It's kind of tough to keep a unit from gettin wet. Lets hope they solved that problem.
Hey Shaun, doin well, be thankful you left Casitas and you get to fish Havasu, Casitas is dyin and needs big help. I will probably buy the HDS unit because my Lowrance unit have been trouble free.

Thanks Again....

Rod Wynn · Post by **Rod Wynn** » Mon Oct 04, 2010 11:41 am

Just for the record, whoever maintains the Lowrance Facebook page usually answers pretty quick and that page is a great resource for answers..

http://www.facebook.com/lowrance

szuloaga · Post by **szuloaga** » Sat Nov 20, 2010 8:24 am

Hey guys,

Had to put this thread back up for a few questions regarding the HDS-5. I've narrowed my choices down to these two models of the HDS-5 but don't know which one best suits my need. Here they are I got them from BassPro's website what do they mean? 83/200 KHZ WITH ENHANCED US BASE OR 83/200 KHZ WITH LAKE INSIGHT?? I fish mostly Castaic, Castaic Lagoon, DVL...you get an idea of what fisheries are my home which of those two HDS-5 Models would be the best for me? Thank you in advance for your help!

Steve

fishndp · Post by **fishndp** » Sun Nov 21, 2010 6:48 am

I recently purchased the HDS 5
I went with the base map and plan to add the navionics chip.
I was told by several people that as the way to go.
Downside is it's going to set me back couple hundies more.

I purchased through BPS. Sent out for my $50 rebate on Friday.
My unit came with the 3.0 operating system so I downloaded the 3.5 system from lowrances website. The unit wasn't recognizing the sd card with the new download so I called Lowrance customer service. I was wondering how that was going to go after all the negative posts I read.
Service was prompt to get to my call and they helped me out.
FYI if you download the upgrade when it asks you to run or save the download choose run or else it doesn't install on the unit.
Going out over Thanksgiving to test it out. Can't wait.
Bruce

szuloaga · Post by **szuloaga** » Sun Nov 21, 2010 6:42 pm

Thanks for the reply Bruce! I went with the HDS-5 Lake insight model as it seemed to be the best for my needs out of the options I had. I am extremley excited to get it as it's gonna teach me alot!!! Really good to hear that Lowrance's customer service has been improving. I've been hearing alot of negative feed back on that side of Lowrance too but, that didn't detour me from getting my unit. I figured it was something they would adventually improve. How long did it take for your order to come thru? I went with BPS as well. As for the 3.0 operating system what is that? How do you download info from Lowrance or Navionics to the unit? Thanks for the help and the replies.

Steve

fishndp · Post by **fishndp** » Sun Nov 21, 2010 8:47 pm

Glad the info was useful Steve. BPS took about 5 or 6 days to get the unit to me.

I don't know if the 3.0 is an actual operating system .
I just made that correlation for ease of explanation.
Anyway 3.5 is the new and improved and I read when doing my research prior to my purchase that you should download and install it. They made some upgrades that make the unit perform better I guess.
It is downloaded from the Lowrance web site to an SD card on your pc than you insert the card into the SD slot on the Hds 5 power up the unit and it loads on the update.

From what I understand when you purchase the navionics maps it is an SD card with the maps on it. They have many of the lakes in 3-D type detail on their platnum version for the gps portion of the HDS.
I guess once I get navionics I will understand it better.
Bruce