Ok gps Lowrance question

[Chevk587]

Ok may be a dumb question but thought I’d ask so . First off I know we have gps on our phone now but I thought it would be cool to plot trails and save them .

Second I know I really don’t need one but I have a few Lowrance fish finders/ gps units I use on my boat one day I noticed in the off road design vert they have a unit in there probably the one pictured below maybe not anyway
My question is can I use one of my units specifically the hook 5 unit anyone have a opinion or done this figured I have it why not use it ?

 

[anwat]

I've got a Lowrance in my truck that's about useless unless you're in mexico. Their map cards are expensive and very limited for the us. I'm just waiting until I get a smartphone and will use one of the many apps that do everything a lowrance can do and more for way less money. And yes, I still have a flip phone. Hasn't broken yet, and I'm not buying a smartphone that tracks everything I do until I absolutely have to.

 

[centexk5]

I've got a decade old garmin that came with my truck that I hacked and uploaded current maps and firmware to. It's got the trails of my offroad park in it also.

 

[ktmoutfront]

I have a 13 year old Lawrance Baja 5c ruggedized receiver. Have not had any issues except that if my card goes bad, I have not found a way to format a new one. They no longer support it. Old tech, but it works great and I can still load GPX tracks to it.

@mrk5 logs all of his trips. He will chime in now.

 

[mrk5]

I've been using an app called Back Country Navigator on my cell phones for probably 10 years now. You can download various different topo maps, some free and some cost money. They have some neat ones if you do a lot of hunting or other backwoods stuff; neat because they will show boundaries for BLM land.

You can download the topo maps to your phone's storage so you don't need to have an internet connection to use them.

I download GPS tracks for 4x4 trails from a few different sources like TrailsOffroad.com and import them into Back Country Navigator. Makes wayfinding a lot easier for trails you don't know.

In the app I record tracks when I do trail runs even if I downloaded them beforehand. I like to have the info so I can see where we stopped and how long the trail took. Plus sometimes I find the tracks downloaded from the Internet are off or outdated. In some cases I might also take a different route or spur. You can export those tracks from Back Country Navigator and import them into Google Earth to play around with them. I've used that feature to make my own custom tracks for combining several trails.

The developer has been working on a new version of the app called Back Country Navigator XE. I haven't messed around with it much. I don't know if it will eventually replace the original Back Country Navigator app.