Lowrance Tech Support.................Questionable at best

Recently had some questions for Lowrance tech support. Called and spoke with "Dave", I asked about running the units out of the water for software updates and general set ups. I told Dave I had two TI9 units and had been unhooking the transducer cable when running these off the water, ie, garage, driveway, etc. He said I should not be unhooking the transducer cable from the unit as I might damage the threads, he stated that no damage will be done to the transducer running them off the water. I asked him to clarify this and send me an email confirming this, needless to say I never heard anything back from him. Second call to another tech, same question, his answer was it would not hurt the transducer. Third call to another tech and they said 15 minutes would be ok but not longer due to the heat generated by the transducer.
Second question I had regarding the download for the 18.2 software update. He said I could not download it via a Mac system, must be windows only. Third question was to inquire about linking the two units, response.........no problem, a simple software change, no hardware or cables required.
I call tell they must have outsourced the tech support off shore to the lowest bidder. I hope no one else is going thru the frustration I am experiencing.

Rock ... I ran my Elite 5DSI out of water for an hour or more, more than once, when manually entering GPS coords. I also left the unit on when moving the boat from place to place on the water (tdx is mounted on trolling motor). No ill effects from either of those things were ever detected.

As far as removing the cable from the back of the unit .... if you're careful and gentle, and pull the tdx plug "straight" out from the back of the unit, you should be fine. DO NOT wiggle or bend the tdx plug sharply in any direction to remove it from the unit, and don't "force" the plug into the pin socket !! I did, and bent one of the pins ... and even forced one of the bent pins into the soft plastic of the tdx plug. When I found out the pin was bent, I straightened it back to the correct position so it entered the hole, and the unit worked fine after that. Unfortunately, I did the same thing again (many months later) and when I went to bend the pin back into position ... it broke. Unit is now useless, and has been replaced with a Hook 7. Believe me when I say that I am VERY CAREFUL when plugging or unplugging the unit.

You should be a able turn off the pinging on the unit on the sonar page?says stop sonar.

Thanks for the info fellas. I did get the 18.2 software update to download correctly, changed the search engine from "google" to "google chrome", worked flawlessly. Prior to that I followed the steps of going into archive utility to make some changes but that did not help. Google chrome worked correctly. As far as the transducer goes I was hesitant to run the unit out of water and ruin an expensive total scan transducer due to it heating up. I will look into the "stop sonar" option, thanks.
If anyone can help with linking the two units I would appreciate the feedback. I have one unit in front running off the universal sonar transducer built into the power drive minn kota, the rear unit is running off a transom mount total scan transducer. What I want to do is mirror the back screen info to the front unit. Received several different conflicting answers when I spoke with Lowrance tech support.
Also, if anyone has installed the 18.2 software update I would like to hear their evaluation. Have read mixed reviews, some like it, most did not and reverted back to the 7.0 update version.
Thanks again.
CrappyPappy, thanks for the plug recommendation. Plugging and unplugging could lead to some costly damage to the pins. Will leave the unit plugged in.
Worst case scenario is I end up toasting the transducer and buggering up the pin connector forcing me to purchase a new Garmin unit. LOL.

Elite Ti from 7 and up supports NMEA2000, so they can share waypoints as long as both units are turned on. I don't think they will share the sonar screen...they don't have Ethernet.