LOWRANCE LMS-332c

One of the standout units from Lowrance’s huge range of new depth sounders is the LMS-332c depth sounder/GPS combo

The Lowrance LMS-332c has all the features of the big sets, but in a compact housing with an equally compact retail price.

With one of the industry’s best sunlight-readable colour display, this unit packs all the features of the big sets, but in a compact housing with an equally compact retail price.

A GPS/depth sounder combination model, images on screen are via brilliant new Lowrance technology in a 256-colour TFT display that allows wide angle viewing in all ambient light conditions.

With a screen measuring 12.7 cm diagonally, the 480 x 480 pixel count has a resolution that offers the best available target and structure separation utilising Lowrance’s unique Colourline function.

Its 2,400 watts peak-to-peak (300 watts RMS) power output gives this unit positive depth sounding and fish finding down to 279 m.

Lowrance is famous for its high boat speed readability of screens utilising its well-proven 200 kHz Skimmer transducer, which comes standard with built-in temperature sensor reducing the number of cables on the transom. While measured at an industry standard of 20-degree beam angle, this unit in conjunction with the incredible features within, allow fish detection out to 60-degrees.

Lowrance’s trademark registered ASP (Advanced Signal Processing) feature is further proof that the company leads the field in marine electronics. It is a noise rejection system built into the sonar unit that constantly evaluates the effects of boat speed, water conditions and interference and adjusts the screen to suit. Noise is any undesirable signal, which might come from electrical or mechanical sources such as bilge pumps, ignition systems, electrical wiring or even air bubbles under the transducer. ASP can be manually turned off in the Sonar Features section of the menu, under Noise Rejection to view all of the information being offered to the headset.

Further adding to incredible screen imaging, the Surface Clarity Control function reduces or eliminates surface clutter signals by changing the sensitivity of the receiver — decreasing it near the surface and gradually increasing it as the depth increases. This feature offers uncluttered viewing for fish detection near the surface. Add FishReveal to your fish finding arsenal and things are looking pretty good indeed! Unique to Lowrance, FishReveal identifies sonar returns from fish hiding in structure such as weed beds, thermoclines and even surface clutter.

HyperScroll is another tool handy for the boater on the move. Combating the problem of slow chart speed on a unit attached to a fast moving boat, Lowrance has introduced this feature that allows for manual adjustment of the ping speed of the transducer. Under Ping Speed in the menu, the default setting for the ping is 50 per cent. Once adjusted over that the unit automatically enters HyperScroll mode and increases the chart speed even faster than the manual 100 per cent setting, resulting in a greater amount of information displayed on screen that normally would be lost to the operator.

In Combo mode the screen of the LMS-332c may be resized to suit the requirements of the operator at the time and data from the depth sounder screen may be overlaid onto the chart plotter screen and vice versa. GPS information is derived via a 12-parallel channel low profile antenna with incredibly accurate plotting via MMC (Multi Media Card) Navionics Charting featuring depth contours.

Up to 100 routes with up to 100 waypoints per route and 100 saveable and retraceable plot trails containing up to 10,000 points per trail provide superlative navigation using 40 mapping ranges from .03 out to 4000 km. Add to this, compatibility with NMEA 2000, which will allow interfacing with a wide range of Lowrance products arriving in 2005 and you are looking at one very intelligent fishing and boating tool.