Lowrance 520c

[strokeoluck]

I'm heading up to Lake Vermillion, MN in a few weeks and need to figure out how to operate a few things on my GPS. Any help you can offer is greatly appreciated:

1) How do I find out if I have the Lake Vermillion map (or "chip") in the GPS? The previous owner told me he had loaded a Minnesota lakes chip in the GPS - and it indeed has recognized the three local lakes I've been on - but I have no clue how to ensure it's got Lake Vermillion in there. And I'd prefer to find out before we get up there as I hear it's a big lake.

2) How do I pull up the map of the lake depths? From time to time I somehow stumble across a map of the lake (w/the arrow indicating our boat position) that indicates the depths across the entire lake. I know those are approximate and can vary based on rainfall, etc. but they sure are helpful. I have no clue how I stumbled across those maps, and presently I've got a split screen up that is NOT showing me the entire lake map of depths. It's presently showing me our boat position in the lake on one half of the screen, and the depth of the lake under our boat on the other half of the screen.

Yes, I know I should read the manual...and I have. But that thing is 500 pages long and is a pain to navigate. For our local lake purposes I really don't use many of the GPS features so I'm not overly familiar w/all the bells and whistles. For this trip though I need to use a couple of them. I'll try to peruse the 500 page manual if I have to, but was hoping some old salts here could easily tell me what to do. Thanks in advance!

 

[ovrrdrive]

Re: Lowrance 520c

You can sit in your driveway and zoom out and use the directional pad to pan over to the lake you're wondering about to see if the depths are on the map. Use the pages button to select full screen map and hit exit. Then hit the zoom out button until you see as much of the lake as you want to.

I have the 520c. I used the emulator from Lowrance to learn how to use it on my computer at home.

http://www.lowrance.com/Downloads/Product-Emulators/

By the way, you can open the sd card cover on the unit and verify what chip is in it. The chip has to stay in the unit to load the maps afaik. My navionics chip does.

 

[strokeoluck]

Re: Lowrance 520c

Thanks Overrdrive,

I tried downloading the emulator but can't seem to get it to fire up. Maybe it's a conflict with Windows 7. Since no one else has posted I guess I'll have to start digging through 500 pages. I'll give your ideas a try first. Thanks again.

 

[strokeoluck]

Re: Lowrance 520c

For those that may stumble across this post in the future, I think I found out what's going on. When I scan over "large" lakes (e.g. Lake Minnetonka, Lake of the Woods, Lake Vermillion, etc.) it shows me lake depths. When I scan over smaller lakes - say, 50-100 acre lakes - there are no lake depths.

I did open the card area and confirmed I have the MN lake chip, so that's good. I guess when I'm on new, smaller lakes I'll either pull up the map online and bring it with me, or just carefully tour the lake first before hitting the gas.