Transducer and Sounder/Gps Help

[Danstu]

Hi Everyone

Hoping someone would be able to give me some advice on a new sounder and gps set up for a new boat. I am pretty hopeless tech wise and was thinking of going a Furuno 588 and a Garmin 1022xsv. I know this gear isn't the latest and flashiest gear around but I am mainly fishing in 30 - 80 m of water from the cape to the sunny coast and an occasional trip to the bunker group.

What transducer would you recommend? I definitely want to go a through hull tranny and have been looking at the SS60, SS175H, and SS264N and SS164. Don't want the whole package to go much over 8K once I have bought an external antenna, NMEA starter kit and a map card.

Am totally open to other peoples ideas of a good setup and any suggestions as well. Just a bit confused really!!!

Thanks for the help in advanced.

[chocolatemoose]

Gday mate nice part of the world for sure

for that budget you really could have quite easily your cake and eat it too with some biscuits left in the tin for after dinner coffee.
the 588 is a solid performer for sure. it does not have long legs on it features wise but they are pretty solid units "untill the screens delaminate" we often down here pair 588s with 175hws which gives the unit a wide beam 200khz 1kw option "but obviously neglets any lower frequrency 50khz option. "
this is often why we have seen the rise in populatory of more ocmplete MFD solutions from all the big brands "furuno included"

id say though that wanting something easy to use is first on the priority list below "within budget... obviously" it really doesnt matter how good the system can deliver decent returns if you cant operate it to that level or find it frustraitng to under stand it

alot of cause of sonars performance comes from the transducer itself "and its placement on the boat" its worth asking the question of "what sort of boat do you want to install this on" about now.

id say this is a good idea opener though and a there are a lto of cominations

My recomendations would be

Garmin 8410xsv with a SS175H as a starter

-Reasons

the 588 furuno you have been looking at is a vertial 8" system low resolution sounder only system . this is catered for comfortably with the 10" high resolution system in the 8410
the 1022xsv is actually obsoleted unit "in some ways" system but still offers physical key only control over a 10" system whilst over the furuno offering "CHIRP" frequencies and fixed tone pulse frequencies. and gps etc.

The 8410 Is a full HD screen, offering a fair amoutn more resolution over those other systems equating to it being easier to read the defitiion of targets "especially closer together"

Can run dual 1kw chirp signals "with the right transducer configueration you can actually run 3x 1kw chirp frequecies should you want to"

stupidly easy to use (not a sales pitch, there are some very very cool features that allow for you to safe presets of perticular sonar settings so when you change fishinfg grounds you can at one press of a button have your sonar set up for those areas "shallow.. deep... bottom coverage.... night time . how ever you like "

Budget wise. it would leave a few thousand left in the kitty other things and or towards installtion.

If you are keen on physical keys you could add a GRID physical remote control (say a grid 20 to connect to your existing NMEA2K network) or GRID10 for ethrenet intergration. or a wireless GPSMAP remote control. this will give you all the characteristics of a physical control as well as the benifits of touch screen "Which do come in handy for mapping in perticular"

speaking of mapping

It also gives you access to garmins pretty dam good collection of maps "including their new high resolution relief shading maps"


i realise this is a lot to get through so feel free to shoot through any questions

Moose

[CT]

I've got a similar, slightly lower performance setup to what you're proposing. Furuno 620, P66 transducer, but set up in hull (shoot through) and Garmin 95 sv chirp. Furuno is hooked to the Garmin with a markfish so I can mark on the Furuno and have it display on the Garmin.

I love the ability of the Furuno. I previously ran it stand alone but not being able to mark to the plotter is ridiculous. These days I can find everything I mark at speed. I run the garmin in my tinny as well and would love the ability to run side scan in the big boat. If I ever put a GT51 in the big boat I'd need another screen for the plotter as I'd run the furuno on bottom zoom and the Garmin on side scan.

This sort of package clearly has its limitations but comes in at under half of your $8K budget!

[Danstu]

Hi Moose
Thanks for your advice there a couple of weeks ago I really appreciate it. Just wondering what your thoughts were on which was a better sounder. The Furuno 588 or the Simrad 2009. I'm hoping to run a SS175M as the transducer on a plate alloy boat. Also I was told you could run this tranny with the Furuno by one person and you couldn't by another. Would love your thoughts agin.

Danstu

[scottar]

Hi wide Transducers.............great for glamour photos of arches, bottom fishing in shallow water (sub 30 metres IMO) and chasing pelagics. For deep water they provide the resolution of a crayon drawing and come with a couple of issues - all revolving around the cone angle.

First up is target masking. This is a problem if you fish around steep structure. Your sounder is taking every echo in a 3 dimensional cone and displaying it in a 2 dimensional format. The bottom return is always the strongest (assuming the fish aren't that thick they "block out the sun"). If you are along side steep structure that has fish down the side of it, their echo returns are obscured on the sounder picture by the return from the bottom. As a basic set of numbers - in 100 metres of water a HW transducer has a cone width of 40 metres give or take. Lets say we find a 1 metre wide pinnicle - you see fish down the side - roughly 20 metres before the boat is over them and then the pinnicle echo obscures their targets for the next 40 metres of boat travel until you see the fish again - 20 metres behind you. Target masking happens with all sounders and all transducers but as cone angle or depth increases the "problem" gets worse.

Second is just where in the cone is the target. It doesn't matter sometimes but for some situations it certainly does. I fish with a mate that has an EVO3 with a HW - he mainly chases pelagics but if we are fishing the bottom it sometimes takes a few passes to pinpoint a small location . Due to the coverage, in a bit of depth, it's entirely possible to have ground and fish on screen but be fishing on barren sand along side. Mooses market place is a bit different - lots of flat country shallow water snapper fishing and chasing tuna - for this they are great. You see a few for sale second hand up here when people realise they aren't getting the best out of their sets. I tend to phrase it like this - if you want to see the most detail of what is going on under your boat, you want a narrow cone angle. If you are happy to see what is going on around your boat but with less definition, HW is what you are after.

The Furuno will not run a medium frequency chirp transducer. It can only be used on transducers that encompass 50Khz or 200Khz. The medium works from 85 - 135.

I make no bones about being a Furuno sounder proponent. Basic, easy to use and they just work. For the depths you are wanting to operate in, a 600 watt transducer will be fine. A 1 kilowatt will give better definition but at the loss of some coverage on 200 but the 50KHz performance will be streets ahead due to the narrower cone - really comes down to what you want to spend.

GPS - take your pick - they will all put you back on a spot or allow you to navigate. Pay particular attention to the units charting and how it portrays green zones to make sure you are happy with it and spend some time pressing buttons making sure you are happy with all the functions you use day to day. Not everyone "clicks" with every operating system and a lot of people get caught up in the latest and greatest features..........only to find they never use them.

[Lovey80]

Welcome back Scottar. You’ve been missed.