boat fish finder buying advice...?

[Manxman]

Try a Garmin 188 Plotter/Sounder you won't beat them, dual frequency, mine gives a perfect picture of the bottom at up to 28 knots.

It will also give you tide times where ever you are.

It uses Bluechart maps, they are'nt cheap but the detail is marvellous, I can zoom in and navigate up the harbour to my berth no problem at all.

[peterseafishing]

Just a couple of points to ponder over. I prefer to use seperate units when you split the screen to have half on each side the picture size is reduced so you have less infomation. If one unit of a combined fails you loose both whilst it is being repaired . Plus they do not find fish they show what is under the boat . On the fish finder / depth sounder front they are the same item, I have a friend who will only fish when he has fish on the sounder dependent on how the sensitivity is set you can make fish appear at any time I would rather look for bottom changes eg wreck shelf edge hole etc. Check the power output on the sounder but make shure that you compare the same value. Some use peak power others rms power. rms is the better value to compare. (rms is the total power used over a time period peak may only be a burst over a short time the important thing is to just compare like with like 200 rms = 3000 peak approx) The best place for a tranducer is in direct contact with the water. To shoot through the hull reduces power and you need a solid bottom with air pockets some boats are twin glass with either foam or air bottles. I do not loke drilling holes in the boat so I now transom mount with no problems on the last 4 boats. If you mount through the hull you may need to put a fairing on the tranducer if the boat planes to stop air bubbles spoiling the picture. A friend had a through hull tranducer that he damaged and was left with a 1 inch hole 4 miles out he nearly lost the boat . The only manufacture I have on my boat is Lowrance they give a good guarentee and the top modles are 3000 watt peak 200 rms. If you have a open boat make shure any unit is waterproof. Remember you only get what you pay for if you pay for like cars if you pay for a Kia do not expect the performance of a Ferrari. Watch out for older models as well

[gonefishing]

Manxman, thanks, that has come up on the list( although its right at the top in expense terms;))...can i ask you a few q's?

 

So you definately get tide times where ever you are...does that data come with the bluechart maps oris it built in?

 

Is it better to get bluechart on a memory stick or cd and upload it?

 

Can you easily exchange data with other users of different makes? is there a sd ram slot or something?

 

I think i'm getting a clear picture of whats what, its now down to finding a way through the questions that dont get answered on the feature list on the sites.