Before you buy your next electronic device

[steve c]

Turned on my radar and a " No Radar " message appeared on the chartplotter. Checked and the same message also was indicated on a second device. I reviewed the trouble shooting info in the manual and checked the required solutions to no avail. I called technical support and was #24 in the que for app. 1 hour and 45 minutes and I gave up since my position was still 24th. I emailed my problem on 5/6 and finally recieived a response on 5/21 with the same solution as the original info in the manual which I had referred to when I sent the email. On 5/4 I tried a phone call at 9:22 AM and was in the que for appx. an hour and a half. I was advised so check the same info from the manual and I explained I had performed those checks. I was then transferred to a level 2 tech at noon. I was #3 in the que and at 1:30 I was " next ". At 3:36 I was disconnected. 6 hours and 12 minutes of my time was wasted. The moral of this story is that when you have sorted out the piece of equipment you wish to purchase, call the customer support line before you hand over your money.

[Capt Chad]

Inquiring minds want to know. Who was it? Raymarine?

[steve c]

Simrad

[Bob Bradley]

I replaced my Raymarine electronics with Simrad on my old boat and regretted it immensely. They absolutely suck. When I bought the current boat it had Simrad. I promptly replaced it with Furuno and have been very happy with it, and particularly with their customer support. You talk to real professionals without a lot of runaround.

[Capt Chad]

Simrad was my next guess.

I have been very happy with anything I ever purchased from Furuno. And the old stuff that came on boats I have owned.

[jim rosenthal]

Simrad is also the company who purchased Northstar and promptly closed them down. Northstar made excellent nav products for marine and surveying and military uses, and they made them in the USA.

[steve c]

Unfortunate for me. I have 2 Simrad Chartplotters, 2 Simrad radios ( 1 with AIS transponder ), BG1 sounder module, WIFI and the mentioned radar system. I'm not in a position to replace the core stuff. I just wished that after 2 hours hey just told me that they were not interested in supporting their equipment, just taking my money. It will be Furuno the next time.

[steve c]

PS: I still use my Northstar GPS plotter fo phantom loran.

[sixty]

Simrad

My boat is loaded with about $40k in Simrad electronics. I have TONS of trouble from them that never seems to stop. I have a friend that is sponsored by Simrad and had their techs on my boat just scratching their heads. Their only solution was to upgrade to the latest software which was already done or buy their "latest" units which are so much better . My boat electrician used to work for Simrad and said they have adapted really old software that never worked right and did not follow suit of the other vendors using modern, common operating software.

I definitely will not be buying any more Simrad in my future.

[bigbill]

this is a good reason to buy from an authorized dealer/installer. they will be there to help you with problems