Does anyone have a positive voltage control system? Better known as a Black Box. If so how does it work?

Yup... have one on my boat connected to all four downriggers. To tell the truth, I see absolutely no difference in my catch rate when its on or off. It came with the boat... otherwise I probably never would have tried it to begin with.
I even went so far as to rewire it and test the system to make sure I wasn't getting bad charges from other locations on the boat (as they recommend in the black box instructions). No different.
I have heard it works better in the ocean... however I don't know when I'd be using downriggers out there??? I plan on taking them off the boat while in the salt water myself.

I will say this... it hasn't HURT the fishing while on... so it could be worth experimenting with more. Maybe now that the fish are going deeper I should try more "test" runs to see if it works better this time of year.

On another note... Adrien, my Navionics chip is finally coming in the mail. Took a while, but they wrote back and said that it WILL work with my unit. Should have it today, so may try it tonight?

Off to doctor appointments today... fun fun.

Thanks for the info. Bill

I bought one and when they found I had Cannon downriggers with the Ion charge, etc. they said it would not be of any use because my Cannons had the Negative Ion thingy, they told me to send it back and gave me a refund.

Has anyone heard about a new chip like the Winni one for Squam or any area lakes, the one that shows depth contours, etc. ?????? A guy told me he had one coming from somewhere but I haven't seen him in a while on the pond.

Last time I spoke with Navionics they indicated that updates or new lakes were only done once a year ???

John S.

John - I think Navionics missed Squam again when they just redid the Northeast Prem. chip. Too bad, they added tons of lakes everywhere else, including Maine, NY...everywhere by the NH lakes region it seems. Keep writing / e-mailing them, they may respond next year.

When did the new chip come out ? When I talked with them they indicated the next go around wouldn't be until over the winter or next spring. Maybe the one you mention was allready in the works when we spoke to them and Squam, etc. will be the next one????

I'll call/E mail them again and see if I can get a better answer, or at least see if any in the Lakes area are in the plan.

John S.

John -- I've got the 2006 Hotmaps Premium East which came out in January. I had just bought it last year and had to upgrade it already when I saw how many lakes they put on there -- particularly a new high-res map of Moosehead... Best thing to do is get a list of lakes that got missed (Squam, Ossipee etc.) and get others in the area to lobby them together. If you give Navionics contacts for whatever maps are available, paper or whatever, that helps to grease the skids.

They even put the "Toronto Reservoir" -- the dinky hydro lake I fished last weekend -- on the chip. They should get Squam and others in the lakes region.

I told them I could send a map and gave them the name of the survey people, etc. Museum of Science in Boston was involved believe it or not. I mentioned oher Lakes in the area and I'm pretty sure others sent request for other area Lakes about the same time I did.

I'll call them now and see what they say,

John S.

Just received my new chip today... it is stamped March '06 and doesn't have Squam on it. Or many others in the area. I emailed with a fella at Navionics the other day and gave him a list of a bunch of lakes in the area that weren't on their list. He said they sincerely would put the list in the "system" for the next batch of mappings. We'll see.
Looking forward to using the new HD map of winni.

i dont have one, but when looking them up this winter i remember seeing that they do work if the hull of the boat is aluminum, but not as well on a fiberglass hull. something about the grounding on aluminum boats.