Good morning Oregon and everyone everywhere else. 29.0 with a light dusting of snow and a little bit still coming down. Better than the 26 it was earlier.

 

Good morning all you fine folks in Oregon..

 

Good morning John. How's the snow treating you? Any thawing to the permafrost yet?

 

Morning all. 30 deg and more snow for us. About 1/2" when I left. Enough cold and snow to make it slick.

Jim - Portland Marine Electronics or Rogers Marine is another place to look and they actually know what they are talking about. There is also Fisherman's Marine but their selection is limited. West Marine is always high priced. Maybe it's just me but I did all of my comparison shopping online. Other than PME or Rogers, no knows anything about the differences in my experience. Like a lot of things these days you can spend $500 or $5000 on a unit which really makes it difficult to decide unless you have an unlimited budget. Good luck.

Wife wants to go to the RV show in Portland, Not sure why other than it's her attempt to try and convince me we need a 5'er. Which will never happen. On the other hand we can look at truck campers... haha..

 

Not yet but should get some soon, temps are going to climb above freezing Sunday but unfortunately we are supposed to get some snow too

 

So what you are saying is the Mother Nature is a tease!

 

Well it stayed sunny all day and almost reached 0°c ,they had said it was going to cloud over and have light flurries so I like the way she's teasing..

 

Good evening Oregon and everyone everywhere else. Didn't make it to town today. We decided to get some stuff done around here and go tomorrow when we'll have the full day to goof off.


I've been on the horn and email with Humminbird and Simrad Techs and have it narrowed down to exactly what I want - I think.
I had forgotten about Rogers Marine or PME. West is kind of out. Don't care for them anyway and you are right, they are expensive for the most part. Stevens Marine is less than impressive as well. They kind of got my attention a couple of years ago.
Englund Marine does have the Helix 7 I want for the same price as Humminbird has listed on their site. That may be the ticket for that one.
At the Helm station I want to upgrade from a current GO7XSE to a GO9XSE. That would just be a head swap out. Power cables, data cables -Total Scan Tranduecer- everything I currently have in place with the exception of the dash mount bracket is compatible with the GO9XSE, GO9XSE not only gives me 2 extra inches of display screen, but also gives me the option to upgrade with Radar later on if I ever decide to do that. https://www.simrad-yachting.com/simr...l_key_features The GO9XSE head I'll probably order directly from Simrad. Techs gave me the part number for a head only unit that will save some money.

At the stern station I want to put the Humminbird Helix 7 CHIRP MEGA SI GPS G3 in. https://humminbird.johnsonoutdoors.c...-si-gps-g3-nav
Just need to hunt around and find the best price. Wouldn't mind getting an up close demo of the Helix and compare the MEGA display to the standard HD display. I need to find a local outlet for the Helix. Humminbird sells them on line but they have been hit real hard on this model and don't have the back stock. They have orders for the retail stores out beyond April 1. They won't sell them on line until all the retail stores have gotten what they want.

This next part is for your wife only...make sure you show her.....

Guarantee RV out of Junction City has an RV Palooza show going on at the Volcano's Baseball Field in Salem. Started today and goes through Sunday. You can make a full weekend out of it. It was one of their shows out here at the Casino that the Warden found the 5'er she liked.
https://www.guaranty.com/rvpalooza/

 

Morning all. 34 and wet up here.

I looked at humminbird but their proprietary sonar mapping feature was a turn off at the time. Looks like you know what you're looking for. Since I quit the ocean my needs (or wants?) downsized a bunch. I haven't kokanee fished yet in the current boat but if my garmin can see those I'm golden. A rear screen is really great thing. I've done that in the last couple boats but probably not something I'll do on this one.

We went to RV thing at the volcano's stadium last year. It was OK. So far I'm able to avoid the RV show. We are going to Carlton this afternoon for the cocktail walk and see what that's about. I just want to go to the Bullrun Tasting room. We were at the SIP last night and sampled most of the distillery's there...Only reason I like to go. It's interesting how many distillery's are around now.

 

 

Good morning Rich, Evan and those to follow.
Currently 35° up from 26°.
We need to head over the Coast Range this morning, but delaying departure to see if roads get better.

 

Good morning Oregon and everyone everywhere else. 34.7 up from a low of 34.1. Overcast and wet with some scattered showers.

Ken Wright and Carlton winery's beyond him are getting to be the Oregon version of the old TV series, Falcon Crest! I have a brother in law that works the tasting room at Argyle, a son that works for a vineyard and vintner just outside of Carlton, a nephew in law that works for two different wine tasting rooms and a son in law who has a phycological and mental addiction to anything labeled "Rogue".
Personally, I stay away from all tasting rooms. We do go to the Rogue Nation in South Beach every once in a while and get a hamburger and maybe a Chocolate Beer or Dead Horse Ale.

The problem I have with the "RV Palooza's" is that they are all a single dealer. They are kind of neat to look at, I have no doubt that we probably will kill an afternoon at the one at the Casino, but again, all one dealer with no price / dealer competition.

The ocean is one of my problems. I think I'm pretty well done with it. Key word is "Think". If there aren't some easing of the regs, I think I am pretty well done with the ocean, especially with the new motor in the boat. Well, done that is right up until Gary pulls the "want to go fishing?" phone call like he made to me (twice) yesterday. I would like to go chase Salmon, especially Chinook in the Ocean. Really torn on Halibut unless they re-open the pile to Halibut and Lings at the same time and I don't see that happening anytime soon.

Looks like PME has the Humminbird unit I want in stock and for $27.00 cheaper than anyone else.

Humminbird, Lowrance and Simrad aren't proprietary. Have never paid much attention to Lowrance as they never had the depth or features Humminbird did. Simrad-Yachting is now a division of Lowrance. With these guys I can use Navionics, C-Map, Insights and Lake Master. There may be others, but I haven't looked beyond those.
I use Navionics Plus and don't look much farther anymore. With the Navionics I can download daily updates and get the community edits. I and a lot of others upload sonar charts to Navionics. Navionics incorporated the depth profiles and contours into their own mapping system base on the marine mapping system. Then Navionics subscribers can download the integrated maps to their machines. The tree stumps or ship wreck that may not show up on other mapping programs will show up on my Navionics mapping. (Provided one of us has run over it and uploaded the sonar readings to Navionics.)
I've used Humminbird since 1988 in the old Sonar only-pre GPS and their Platinum ID days. Got into Simrad a couple of years ago after my buddy got one at the Sportsman Show and told me they were a 'must have'. I'm not convinced they are a "must" have, but once I figured out the menu's and how to efficiently use them, they are pretty good.

Garmin is, or was proprietary, I haven't really looked into them since their Garmin Blue Water Map days and since my Garmin Unit up and quit on me a couple of years ago.. The only reason I had a Garmin Marine Unit is because my son bought a nice one and then gave it to me when he sold his boat. I set it up in the back of the boat where we could easily see it when fishing - and that gave us a spare. (The old time sailors thingy "Never go out on the Ocean without 2 of everything!) Used to be you had to use Garmin's Blue Water mapping system or the Garmin "Lakes" SD chip mapping and couldn't use anything else and the Unit I had was no different.
I still have a Garmin Lakes SD card (outdated and useless for any machine I've got now) and I have Blue Water on an old XP 'puter upstairs. It "timed out" and locked up. They wanted over $100 to renew the subscription and unlock the mapping program. For Marine purposes only I have no idea what Garmin even has or offers these days.

Navionics, is kind of a subscription mapping as well, but only if you want updates beyond the 1 year mark. You get a 1 year subscription when you buy the program, but if you don't renew it doesn't lock down, you can continue using it, you just don't get any map updates or community sonar updates.

The mapping/navigation isn't nearly as important now as it used to be, although they still come in very handy when we are out after dark.

 

Good evening Oregon and Visiting Ford Fans.

 

Good evening Oregon and everyone everywhere else. Made it home from the big city in one piece. Stopped at the End of the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center, Portland Marine Electronics and Cabela's. Headed off to Salem from Cabela's to take care of a couple of errands there and have some dinner. Got to Applebee's on Lancaster but the place was full with lines backed up out the door waiting for seating. That was a no go and we headed on for home via a stop at the farm to check up on mother.