Humminbird Helix 7 Mega SI GPS G3N?

[ElectricDyck]

Hi guys, Im in the market for new sonar for my center console RIB...right now Ive got a small 4.3" garmin unit with the blue chart maps. I need reading glasses these days and seeing anything on the tiny screen, especially when its split and bumping along in chop is impossible lol. Not to mention when I take my map card out and put it in my desk top computer to scout spots and mark way points you can't zoom in to full detail which makes it pretty useless. What Ive found online is Garmin is aware of this problem but so far is doing nothing to address it...

It seems every year cabelas blows out the older Helix 7 models to make room for the new models...https://www.cabelas.ca/product/120658/humminbird-helix-7-mega-si-gps-g3n

I'm thinking of getting 2 of these, 1 for maps/bottom countours and the other for sonar...sounds like I'll need to purchase a navionics card for it as well as it only has lake maps.

Anybody have any experience with these models? Are they decent value for the price? The cost is already more than my princess feels comfortable with but is there better options for the same cost? Will I be able to pull out my navionics card and scout on my home computer? Do you need to buy additional cords to network them together on one transducer?

As fishing/hunting oportunities seem to be going away quickly I've made the decision to get out a lot this year and experience west coast fishing before its gone...thinking of leaving my boat on the island somewhere near port alberni to reduce ferry costs. Does anyone have any recomendations for a safe storage place where I can show up, hook up the boat for a 4 day weekend and drop it off again after?

 

[walleyes]

Helix 7 is a nice model. My personnel thoughts on a couple things. Unless you plan on fishing a lot of fresh water there's not a lot of use for the side imaging which is an added expense, but that would be a personal choice. As far as cards go, if you fish in Canada forget the built in lakes and downloadable lakes from Hummingbird they have zero lakes for Canada, 1000's for the US but none for Canada. Once your buying the card anyways just pay a couple more dollars and get the Navionics card for all of Canada and your covered, coastal and inland. As far as linking them there's two ways you can do this. You can either do a splicer cable which is the cheaper way or you can go with their Ethernet hub which is what I did. The advantage of the hub is you can hook multiple items into it and if you run out of ports you just keep adding hubs. This is handy if you ever want to hook up radar or go cannon downriggers. Its their whole boat system. Keep in mind you can not link the maps from one unit to the other each unit requires a map if you choose to go this route. For emergencies sake the base maps will get you out of trouble though. As I have stated before they take a little to get onto but once you get them dialed in for your use they are awesome unit.

Good luck.

 

[tinboatrobb]

The helix 7 I bought came with a navionics card and the package was 849$ from trotac.

 

[ElectricDyck]

Helix 7 is a nice model. My personnel thoughts on a couple things. Unless you plan on fishing a lot of fresh water there's not a lot of use for the side imaging which is an added expense, but that would be a personal choice. As far as cards go, if you fish in Canada forget the built in lakes and downloadable lakes from Hummingbird they have zero lakes for Canada, 1000's for the US but none for Canada. Once your buying the card anyways just pay a couple more dollars and get the Navionics card for all of Canada and your covered, coastal and inland. As far as linking them there's two ways you can do this. You can either do a splicer cable which is the cheaper way or you can go with their Ethernet hub which is what I did. The advantage of the hub is you can hook multiple items into it and if you run out of ports you just keep adding hubs. This is handy if you ever want to hook up radar or go cannon downriggers. Its their whole boat system. Keep in mind you can not link the maps from one unit to the other each unit requires a map if you choose to go this route. For emergencies sake the base maps will get you out of trouble though. As I have stated before they take a little to get onto but once you get them dialed in for your use they are awesome unit.

Good luck.

Hey thanks for the input. Is the bennefit of linking them together to share the transducer?

 

[ElectricDyck]

The helix 7 I bought came with a navionics card and the package was 849$ from trotac.

Yeah Cabelas had that deal last year as well..cant seem to find that deal anywhere now...

 

[walleyes]

Hey thanks for the input. Is the bennefit of linking them together to share the transducer?

Yes transducer and waypoints as well as what ever else you may want to run. Which is weird they’ll share way points but not the cards.