Nate — are you looking at fishfinders just because of price? The Dragonfly does NOT support external NMEA0183/2000 input, and therefore cannot display AIS; the Garmin 74dv can display AIS, but it’s not as capable at other sailing-related things as other displays are. Also remember that the hi-res sonars will still only show you what’s directly beneath you; these are not forward-looking sonars. Those cost quite a lot more. My experience in Lake Superior is that you only really need to know the bottom depth when you’re in less than 30 feet of water; unless you’re fishing, a fishfinder isn’t going to tell you much more than you already know about the bottom you can look down and see from the cockpit. :^)
As was already mentioned, getting a Standard Horizon VHF with AIS may be a good bet for you; as far as chartplotters go, email me off-list about pricing on the Raymarine a Series plotters. Great features and a good value; and you can interface the VHF’s AIS to them. — Fred Fred Street -- Minneapolis S/V Oceanis (1979 C&C Landfall 38) -- Bayfield, WI > On Jun 24, 2015, at 7:58 PM, Nate Flesness via CnC-List > <cnc-list@cnc-list.com> wrote: > > West has a few day sale on Garmin and Raymarine chartplotters with the new hi > res sonars. > I'm a newbie to most marine electronics. I have 20 year old Raymarine > instruments, and no plans to connect to charplotter. On Lake Superior, AIS > tells you where the freighters are, and GPS where the land is, and you don't > worry very much about running into another sailor out in the "lake" - the one > thing radar adds when its foggy.. > > Several friends got AIS and likely will not add radar.. > > I like to sail and mess with boats - but I prefer to leave the computer > programming stuff for work. > > Any thoughts on the simplicity of adding an AIS receiver to the display on a > Raymarine Dragonfly 7, or to Garmin Echomap 74dv? > > Thanks > > Nate
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