05-12-2010, 12:50 PM
I'm a Humminbird guy. I've had 2 Lowrances and a Garmin, Furuno and Rayethon. I started with a "Bird Trap" flasher and owned through the paper graph phase.
The best finder in the world may tell you there are fish there, but it won't catch them for you.
So, Power- measured in watts. nothing but wats matters when judging power, be it blenders, soldering iorns or electric cars. Watts is the botom line. Buy as many watts as you can. Some companies measure in Peak to Peak watts, some in RMS wattts. More watts means more punch power and netter depth power.
Frequency- The hertz that the signal is shot out of the transducer at. Frequency relates to beam width. Beam width (called cone angle) is how much of the bottom your signal picks up. If your fishing in shallow water you will want a wide cone so that your not looking at a 1' circle of bottom while in 6' of water. A 90 degree cone will show you a 3' circle while in 6' of water and a 45' circle in 90' of water.
Most modern units operate with several selectable frequencies so that while underway you can tune your machine to what you need to see at that time for what you are doing.
Many units transducers are actually several transducers operating at different frequencies all at the same time. The return signals are fed back into the units computer and it uses that data to make the picture you see. That's how they can tell you which side of the boat the fish is on.
Screen- Height is detail, width is time. The number of pixels in height is how much screen the unit has to draw your picture from the surace to it's bottom depth seting. If you have 120 pixels and are set at 30' you have a pixel for each 4" of coverage. If you have 360 verticle pixels at 30' setting you have 1 pixel per inch. This leads to seperation and what the computer can draw for you.
You want lots of verticle pixels.
Width is time. the farthest line of pixels to the right of your scren is real time. That is the signal being returned and drawn. as the next signal is recieved the farthest line is redrawn one row to the left and the new data is drawn farthest to the right. so on infinitem, until the screen width is met then the information goes off the screen. History is the rows of pixels from the second row to the last. If you look away and then back you can still see what happened for a short time while you looked away.
Color or B&W? No question in your price range, go with color. In B&W units various levels of grey are used to display the density of the interuption to the signal. Rock is more dense than weeds so they show up as light grey stands with a black line below them. Color does it using different bright colors and this makes it easier to see he walleye laying 3" of the botom in the weeds because there is a green spot in the middle of the yellow above the red.
To recap, power? You want it. Number of Pixel height? Very important. Color? Yes.
Not wanting GPS makes me think you already have one that you will have on board, nice, but having one built in will be easier to use and help you to get back to that downed tree you saw on the screen a minute ago. I would recommend it. They are also a help when your fogged in at Bird Island and want to get back to Provo Boat harbor. You just follow the line you made on the way out. The unit will calculate time of arrival by tracking your true speed.
Lots more to talk about, it takes a while to learn your way around the unit you choose. Not to worry, go to Sportsmans and Cabelas and look them over, pick one in your price range, learn to use it and you'll be happy.
Last, look at the mounting system. Some have a base that you plug the unit into, some have seperate wires to be connected in the back. I use my unit on 2 different boats and have a cooler set up for travel and ice fishing. This makes mounting system important to me.
[signature]
The best finder in the world may tell you there are fish there, but it won't catch them for you.
So, Power- measured in watts. nothing but wats matters when judging power, be it blenders, soldering iorns or electric cars. Watts is the botom line. Buy as many watts as you can. Some companies measure in Peak to Peak watts, some in RMS wattts. More watts means more punch power and netter depth power.
Frequency- The hertz that the signal is shot out of the transducer at. Frequency relates to beam width. Beam width (called cone angle) is how much of the bottom your signal picks up. If your fishing in shallow water you will want a wide cone so that your not looking at a 1' circle of bottom while in 6' of water. A 90 degree cone will show you a 3' circle while in 6' of water and a 45' circle in 90' of water.
Most modern units operate with several selectable frequencies so that while underway you can tune your machine to what you need to see at that time for what you are doing.
Many units transducers are actually several transducers operating at different frequencies all at the same time. The return signals are fed back into the units computer and it uses that data to make the picture you see. That's how they can tell you which side of the boat the fish is on.
Screen- Height is detail, width is time. The number of pixels in height is how much screen the unit has to draw your picture from the surace to it's bottom depth seting. If you have 120 pixels and are set at 30' you have a pixel for each 4" of coverage. If you have 360 verticle pixels at 30' setting you have 1 pixel per inch. This leads to seperation and what the computer can draw for you.
You want lots of verticle pixels.
Width is time. the farthest line of pixels to the right of your scren is real time. That is the signal being returned and drawn. as the next signal is recieved the farthest line is redrawn one row to the left and the new data is drawn farthest to the right. so on infinitem, until the screen width is met then the information goes off the screen. History is the rows of pixels from the second row to the last. If you look away and then back you can still see what happened for a short time while you looked away.
Color or B&W? No question in your price range, go with color. In B&W units various levels of grey are used to display the density of the interuption to the signal. Rock is more dense than weeds so they show up as light grey stands with a black line below them. Color does it using different bright colors and this makes it easier to see he walleye laying 3" of the botom in the weeds because there is a green spot in the middle of the yellow above the red.
To recap, power? You want it. Number of Pixel height? Very important. Color? Yes.
Not wanting GPS makes me think you already have one that you will have on board, nice, but having one built in will be easier to use and help you to get back to that downed tree you saw on the screen a minute ago. I would recommend it. They are also a help when your fogged in at Bird Island and want to get back to Provo Boat harbor. You just follow the line you made on the way out. The unit will calculate time of arrival by tracking your true speed.
Lots more to talk about, it takes a while to learn your way around the unit you choose. Not to worry, go to Sportsmans and Cabelas and look them over, pick one in your price range, learn to use it and you'll be happy.
Last, look at the mounting system. Some have a base that you plug the unit into, some have seperate wires to be connected in the back. I use my unit on 2 different boats and have a cooler set up for travel and ice fishing. This makes mounting system important to me.
[signature]