Sattelite Radio

[Farley]

So I was on Lowerances HSOforum and noticed some units have a Ethernet expansion port for sattelite radio. Any of you guys use this? Do you still need some kind of tuner, and can you use your GPS antenna to recieve the radio signals? We have a LX20c (I think that's the model) on the boat at our cabin and was wondering if I could hook this up through that, it does have the network connection on back, but not sure about the ethernet connection. Would I need to get a seperate antenna?

[RobertELee]

What model was this on? I have a feeling I know what its for but I want to check it out first.

[RobertELee]

Alright I did some more checking and I believe the Ethernet connection is for a service that XM offers called XMWX. It is a $30-$50 (depending on package) a month service that will give you radar, weather forecasts, tides, wave data,sea surface temp., and a whole bunch of other different weather related things for the oceans. It is mainly used by offshore anglers and I don't think it will work great for the inland. Except having a radar to look at would be nice for big lakes. Someone may have more info on this.

[Farley]

Yeah I saw the weather thing too but on Sirius's HSOforum. It will send a dopplar image right to your lowerance unit among other things. Thought that was kind of cool also.

Here's what it's listed as on Lowrance's HSOforum:

5-pin Ethernet expansion port compatible for radar and satellite radio

It looks like it's available on all color models, be it GPS or Sonar. I'm just curious as to why you'd run sattelite radio through your Lowrance unit unless you can either use the same antenna for GPS and satellite radio, or use the unit itself as a tuner.

[RobertELee]

I would hope somebody from Lowrance would be able to give us an answer....my interest has been peaked!

[wx_nut]

Hey Robert:

XM has a service offering called "WxWorx" (pronounced Weather-works) with a package geared towards mariners/fishermen. I use it, albeit for a different purpose, but I have had most excellent success with it, both for fishing and for my 'extra curricular' activity. With the Master Mariner product, it even has an option of 'finding fish'. I'm not sure how accurate it is, as I have never used that feature. I have nothing but excellent things to say about this product. I use it for 5-6 months out of the year, and then I turn it off as an end-of-season package. Then, when the spring comes up again, I re-enable the system, and there is no activation fee.

If anyone wants to know more specific information about it, please message me/email me off list, and I would be more than happy to talk to you about it. Just for the record, I don't work for XM or WxWorx - I'm just one really happy customer for the last three years.

Hope this helps,

-wx_nut