Noticed what seems to be a pretty solid deal on this FF at Bass Pro. I was thinking about picking up this unit for a temporary graph on console and possibly purchasing one of the Plus models come next year and moving the regular chirp to bow and installing plus model on console.

Question(s): 

Does anyone know if one can link the regular EchoMap to a plus version and just utilize one transducer? 

 

Thanks in advance. 

No. You cannot. You can link weighpoints via the Nmea 1083 but you cannot share image data.

Right.  Both the nonCHIRP and CHIRP echoMAPs will only share wpts and routes via High Speed Protocol (blue/brown wires on unit PWR cables).  These units will not share with the newest Plus units that use ethernet to share user data and sonar.  Plus units only network with other Plus units.

Check out the echomap PLUS series. They will now share sonar from one transducer between two PLUS units.

Plus will not share anything with a non plus.