# sonoar help



## The_Roofing_Guy (Jun 23, 2013)

what is the best sonar, transducer set-up (not through hull) to give me the ability to mark and distinguish fish while running boat at planing speed.


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## erie mako (Jan 22, 2013)

Marking while on plane is not the same a distinguishing on plane...
Marks while on plane aren't going to look like the "fish arches" you see while at troll speed...


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## johnboy111711 (Apr 7, 2004)

get a high speed transducer, it would be your only option


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## Misdirection (Jul 16, 2012)

What is your price range? Simrad Go will show fish arches at speed with their stern mounted transducer. So will my Furuno, but I do have a thru hull transducer. But you'll pay $$ for them.

Sent from my SM-A505U using Tapatalk


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## The_Roofing_Guy (Jun 23, 2013)

erie mako said:


> Marking while on plane is not the same a distinguishing on plane...
> Marks while on plane aren't going to look like the "fish arches" you see while at troll speed...


I understand it will take some practice to see the fish from noise or clutter, but want to make sure I get proper setup to do so.


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## The_Roofing_Guy (Jun 23, 2013)

Misdirection said:


> What is your price range? Simrad Go will show fish arches at speed with their stern mounted transducer. So will my Furuno, but I do have a thru hull transducer. But you'll pay $$ for them.
> 
> Sent from my SM-A505U using Tapatalk


Go 9's are like a grand . I did hear that upper end units like the Lowrance hds live are pushing more kilowatts through the transducer, so better for marking at speeds?


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## Misdirection (Jul 16, 2012)

The_Roofing_Guy said:


> Go 9's are like a grand . I did hear that upper end units like the Lowrance hds live are pushing more kilowatts through the transducer, so better for marking at speeds?


This is on my friends Grady from last year with his Simrad Go. Cruising at 31 mph and note the arches of the fish he was marking.









Sent from my SM-A505U using Tapatalk


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## The_Roofing_Guy (Jun 23, 2013)

Wow! That is impressive! Any way you can pm his # to me to discuss his setup ???


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## privateer (Apr 26, 2012)

All the transducers for all the fish finders are made by Airmar. The only difference between Navico (Simrad, Lowrance) vs Garmin vs Raymarine is the head units and their software. My last two Simrad transducers, direct deal from mfg, were even Airmar packaged.

I saw a great video on youtube by Doug Vahrenberg talking about transducer placement. he is specifically pushing Humminbird, his sponsor. However, as I said, the transducers are all the same. thus his guidance is valid for any of the mfgs.


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## The_Roofing_Guy (Jun 23, 2013)

privateer said:


> All the transducers for all the fish finders are made by Airmar. The only difference between Navico (Simrad, Lowrance) vs Garmin vs Raymarine is the head units and their software. My last two Simrad transducers, direct deal from mfg, were even Airmar packaged.
> 
> I saw a great video on youtube by Doug Vahrenberg talking about transducer placement. he is specifically pushing Humminbird, his sponsor. However, as I said, the transducers are all the same. thus his guidance is valid for any of the mfgs.


If you happen upon a link for that video. Sent it please. I'll search on utube as well. Thanks. Oh, so you have used simrad units in the past? How do they measure up compared to the high priced Lowrance and hummingbird units?


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## privateer (Apr 26, 2012)

The_Roofing_Guy said:


> If you happen upon a link for that video. Sent it please. I'll search on utube as well. Thanks. Oh, so you have used simrad units in the past? How do they measure up compared to the high priced Lowrance and hummingbird units?


i am running 2012 era gear. it was top of the line back then. Well above the Lowrance and Humminbird of the time. i went to the Miami boat show and had a week of on the water demos with the mfgs. i got one heck of a deal from Simrad back then... you don't want to know the transducers in the belly of my boat... i think their retail back then was in the $3k range. not much special about the side scan for that time. however, the multi-frequency chirp with configure on the fly was relatively new back then and it is a high speed canyon model designed for offshore. it is about the size of a size 12 shoe with a high speed fairing through the hull. so in our central basin 70'fow it has no problem marking fish at running speeds. last i looked they have a couple more models similar but the technology in the transducer has not changed much since then but the price has really dropped for most of this technology today.

i have the older NSE (discontinued?) models which were not touch screen. they really wanted me to put in the touch screen, but at that time they did not have full function buttons on the NSO models and a touch screen is useless on Erie when pitching and rolling. Year or so later they came out with combo touch screen and buttons - i am taking credit for that... ha ha ha

everything is networked together on my boat including a remote to the autopilot system, radar, sonar, gps, radios. this was the first big push into a fully networked configuration and was really intended for offshore boats. all info is shared on all units - if one shuts off, everything is picked up automatically by the other (system redundancy). there are 2 different networks in the system. one for bulk data and another for the realtime sensor stuff.

overall, i am still very pleased with this system. i don't plan to change it out. however, i am refitting my 18' alumacraft and plan to put a couple of the humminbird solix units on it along with the integrated trolling motor and 360 view. Will likely see one of those units spend some time on the Baha this summer for comparison purposes. Regardless, i will always have some unit that can access the Sirius satelite weather - that is a must for me on Erie. Simrad was one of the few back in 2012 - and humminbird is the only big mfg not on that support list today.


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