I see that Ranger has announced that every 2006 boat will be wired for LowranceNet.

My question is as a bass fisherman, what benefits will this provide to you?

The first one that comes to mind for me would be waypoint sharing between the bow and console units.

What do you guys think?

I also like the idea of monitoring gas consumtion and being abe to know how far you can run. Yeah waypoint sharing would be pretty good too. I was wondering does that mean you would only need one gps reciever?

bassdocktor

You would only need one receiver, BUT your other unit has to be able to display maps and process the gps files.  So in essence, you'll still need two GPS units.

I actually like having two, even if they are linked.  I like being able to set waypoints on the bow as I find structure or fish, or to be able to follow a trail around a grassline.   But I also like having the GPS on the console to be able to get to those points.

Mercury has their own "net."  That's exactly what smartcraft does.  You can get as much or as little info as you want about what's going on with your Merc.  Only problem is that their system is not the NMEA open standard.  It is proprietarty to Mercury.

No personally I wouldn't mind having 2 gps units either for those reasons. Right now I don't but I think it would be great. The ability to have everything linked is cool. The only thing is if one thing goes the rest could follow, if its like a regular computer network. It still seems like a great idea.

bassdocktor