I've started doing a little work on the side setting up and maintaining Humminbird sonar and GPS systems, and one of simplest things to take care of is something people seem to overlook the most and that's updating the software on your Humminbird unit.

It takes two minutes to register a unit at www.humminbird.com, and if you haven't done it yet, I can almost guarantee there's an update waiting for you. All you need is an email address, and the serial number from your unit. The upgrade process is simple:

- Download the update to an SD card
- Turn on your unit, and "Restore Defaults" under the settings menu... THIS IS IMPORTANT.
- Next, re-read the last step and do it! If you do not "Restore Defaults" before an upgrade, an error may occur that requires your unit to go back to the factory to be fixed.
- Insert The SD card with the new software follow the instructions on the screen

It's pretty much as simple as that. A couple optional things I like to do, I do a restore defaults after the upgrade is done, and I also back up my waypoints before the upgrade. I keep the waypoints stored on my PC to work with in HumminbirdPC, and as a backup copy.

Humminbird comes out with software updates 1-2 times a year, and these updates can contain; new functionality, bug fixes, improvements on performance and efficiency, etc. The most recent updates for my units gave me the new Waypoint Management System. This is a new piece of functionality that provides a very robust, user-friendly and feature filled tool to manage my all my nav data (waypoints and routes). Other recent updates included the addition of Down-Imaging for free to all Side-Imaging units, as well as changes in the sonar algorithms. One other tip would be that if you have multiple units networked together either through an Ethernet cable, or an Interlink box, be sure both are up to date. Sometimes if one is running older software, they won't be able to network.

As a final tip, I encourage everyone to take some time to understand their electronics system, know what components there are, and how they work together. Knowledge is power, and knowing how your system works will help you get the most out of it and can help you solve any issues that may arise in the future.