Mike,

It seems the
only way around this is to purchase an update from Lowrance and write
the database file to the new 256MB chip... Seems like a load of crap
to me..


You got it right. It's a one-time 35-$-expense. IMHO, that's not too
bad. I can perfectly understand that they have some copyright
protection on the database - if not, in the age of the Internet, they'd
probably sell no more than 10 per month. Garmin does the same.

OTOH, you're entitled to a free one-time database upgrade if the
database coming with your unit is out of date.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)