On Mon, 03 Dec 2007 07:45:34 -0500, HK wrote:

Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:
On Sun, 02 Dec 2007 22:45:12 -0500, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Sun, 02 Dec 2007 18:55:49 -0500, HK wrote:
Sorry to interrupt the usual drivel in here, but
I did want to report good customer service from Raymarine.

I have a Ray fishfinder/depthfinder on son of Yo Ho. I didn't think the
display was bright enough, so last September I called and asked what to
do. I was told to simply return the unit after the boating season and
Ray's service department would look it over.

Sent the unit back last week, got a phone call Wednesday, told there was
nothing out of the ordinary, but the company was sending a brand new
unit just to make sure.

It arrived yesterday.

Cool.

Oh...side benefit...everyone I spoke with at Ray spoke English properly,
with a solid Yankee accent!
================================================== =
That's good to know but I can tell you from personal experience that
if you had bought a Furuno, the display would have been bright enough
right out of the box. I have to turn ours way down at night to keep
from being blinded by it. It is highly visible in direct sunlight on
the flybridge and that was a deciding factor in buying it.

If you take a look around at what commercial fisherman are using, well
over 90% are Furuno.

When I bought my first Contender, I looked at both systems and didn't
see a lot of difference - both quality small boat systems.

I went with Raymarine only because I have a family connection to
Raytheon and up to that point, always used Raytheon marine equipment.
And I will admit to being a "brand" loyal type of person - with two
exceptions, I've always bought Ford vehicles.

Not a knock on Furuno, but I think a lot is market penetration - used
to be DECCA 202s that were popular small marine radars. I look at
Furuno kinda like Yamaha - they are ok engines, but monkey see, monkey
do. :)

Wow - that DECCA thing goes back a few years.

~~ sheesh ~~

The first Furuno fishfinder mounted on the original Yo Ho died during
the first season and it took Furuno a full month to replace it. I also
had to replace the Furuno-branded transducer once. Both units were
properly installed.

Counter point - I've never owned a Garmin unit that worked properly
first time out of the box and, in my experience, their customer
service leaves a lot to be desired. Yet a lot of people have nothing
but good things to say about them.

So - who knows.