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Sonar Reflections
A good sonar unit may not be essential when fishing offshore, but it
sure helps! This article covers some of the more subtle points on sonar
selection and use that we encountered while setting up Toy Boat 2...
Background
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Comparison
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Install&Setup
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User Interface
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Performance
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What's Next?
When we put Toy Boat 2 together, one of the requirements we had was to make use
of as much existing equipment as possible. This included moving our old,
reliable Lowrance X-85 sonar over from Toy Boat 1 .
We had some concerns about the move. The X-85 was a 375 watt (RMS)
monochrome LCD fishfinder, with a 192 kHz, 20 degree transducer. At the
time it was purchased, it was the "gold standard" in freshwater sonars,
but we had read a lot of negative things about Lowrance units in
saltwater on the Internet. Still, having owned a total of 6
Lowrance/Eagle units over the years, we had developed a certain amount of
brand loyalty, and wanted to find out for ourselves what the issues
really were.
So we started by moving the X-85 to Toy Boat 2, and doing our honest best to
squeeze as much out of the unit in offshore use as possible.
When we finally encountered some issues with the unit which forced a
replacement, we decided to switch over to a comparable Furuno unit (the
LS-6100), and repeat the process.
We weren't expecting a lot of material differences between the two, but in
fact, we were startled at how different the two sonar units were
in terms of usability and performance. But the Furuno unit was not always
better.
Admittedly, the specifics of this comparsion are somewhat dated - the X-85
is long gone (the closest thing they offer now is the
X-125), but in the course of going through this
process, we wound up learning a lot of general things about sonar
installation, use and performance that we had never thought about before.
Most of these things are still valid, so we thought we'd pass them along, as
they may help you make a better decision when selecting a sonar unit
for your skiff.
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