Bought a new Garmin but I haven’t selected a transducer yet. Does anyone have experience with the type that shoots through the bottom of the hull. I wonder if it reduces the resolution of structure on the bottom. ?
My understanding is that the higher frequencies are not going to work well with shoot though. I don’t think side or forward scan will work either. I have an older Garmin and I am using a standard transom mount as shoot through and the resolution seems great even at higher speeds but it is not as advanced as the new units. Rob at West Marine West Ashley is very knowledgeable, if you are in Chs. I would check with him. I am in the process of upgrading now with just a 5cv Chirp bought it because I needed a chart plotter for an upcoming trip and will be mounting the packaged transducer external due to size and to take full advantage of the capabilities of the transducer ranges.
Harry,
I had an older through hull transducer on my last boat that was set up with garmin. It worked incredibly well but it did not have sidescan. Bottom detail was great and that was an old unit. I just bought a new garmin system for the boat I currently have. The transducer is huge but it has sidescan amd chirp. Cant wait to try it out!
Capt. R. Killin
21 Contender “No Slack”
Harrd for what’s it’s worth I installed my Garmin echoMap Chirp 54cv on Saturday on my flats boat. I had picked this unit up from West Marine at a great buy (they are phasing these out) mostly to have a Chartplotter for an upcoming trip to the Keys. I had originally planned to mount the transducer on the transom, but was very limited on where I could place it to where it would be in clean water when running plus I worry about such a mammoth transducer and the potential of it getting bumped in the shallows. For a test I embedded the transducer is a thick bed of silicon directly to the bottom down in the bilge. My hull is solid fiberglass and I estimate about 3/4-inch thick. My transducer is the mid-band chirp (80-160 kHz, 500W) and Chirp Clear vu (260/455 kHz 500W) I did a test run yesterday and was very pleased. I ran the unit with plain view on Chirp mode and manual 80 Hz settings and got a good clear picture even at full throttle. I did not try the 160 HZ setting but with what I saw at Chrirp mode don’t have any reason to run it in any others. I have some research to on the Clearview settings but from what I could tell the image was clear on this setting as well. Hope this helps, made my life a lot easier with the internal mount. Will run a few more times but currently plan to leave as interior mount. If silicone starts to degrade over time will embed in epoxy resin.
I ordered a 942xs. I would really like to have good resolution at high speeds because I bottom fish a lot. Are you saying the transom mount glued to to bottom will work. Thanks for the help
Working fine thus far on my flats boat. Ran it in the upper thirties yesterday and clear as a bell. Keep in mind though I am running inshore max water depth I saw yesterday was just over 20-feet. Also placement, Hull construction and “sticking it to bottom” are factors as well. Air pockets can mess signals up. Try mounting it first in a thick bed silicone pressing the bubbles out as you push it down on the inside of the hull. Silicone is usually not a good long term fix as it breakdown particularly if it’s in a bilge that may get oil and gas in it. If it works to your requirements then you can mount permanently in epoxy resin.