Electronics???

[fishbote]

John - With HSB(Raymarine) or NavNet(Furuno) screens are just displays. You can flip flop them or split the screen if you want. I went with 1 monocrome and 1 color to try to cut cost. Also, if you have 1 color display you can overlap radar on top of your map. Pretty cool technology. Raytheon was the first and Furuno came second. I hope this year the boat will be done and I can provide everyone with a field test!

[Tom Bare]

What are you fishing for and what's your budget?

I'll tell you that if you are looking for bait to find the fish and you have some serious sheckles the Furuno CH-250 is real hard to beat. It's a searchlight sonar machine-looks 360 degrees around boat as well as down. It'll find bait pods anywhere around you. I talked the owner of the boat I run in the Bahamas Billfish Championship to pony up for one and all I can say is WOW! Unit is about 13K.

The only negative thing about the Furuno machines is the fact that they only offer a relatively narrow beam [11 or so degrees I think] on their transduceers at 200kHz. This means your detail in depths of say 40' and less will be inferior to Garmin and Lowrance, who offer 200kHz xducers at a 22 degree cone angle.

Furuno machines do come in dual frequency, so the argument is that you can switch over to 50kHz and get a 37 degree cone angle, but the detail of the 50kHz signal is far inferior to a 200kHz at 20+ degrees.

I had a 582 on my boat and switched it out for a Lowrance X16 for these very reasons. I do a lot of freshwater striper fishing along with the offshore thing and the Furuno machine simply would not mark diddly in 20-40 feet of HOH. I had a buddy who had a Lowrance x85 run around in the same area and he was marking striper and bait everywhere, and I would mark straight lines and blobs.

Hope some of this rambling helps....
Tom.

[ocuyler]

Tom,

How do you like the LCX-16c? I just ordered the 19 combo for my project 23' Any installation tips or oddities? Mine's going in flush.

Otto

[Tom Bare]

Otto,

Great unit- I wired it straight to one of my batteries and have had zero interference issues. I have always been a Furuno man but apparently Lowrance has done something with the screen by twisting the crystals in some new way [this is far different than the x15 so I have been told] and it makes the resolution unbelievable.

I am used to the Northstar GPS so that area of the Lowrance takes some getting used to. I am of the opinion that the GPS "user friendliness" could use some work. Maybe its just that I'm not used to it but it sure does seem they could make things a little easier.

All in all, worth every penny!

Good luck,
Tom.

[cSickNick]

Hey Tom,

I appreciate the value of your experience on the Furuno machines. If you do not mind, a few questions;

1) I assume that the new 1650WF and 1850WF would have the same problem marking fish in 20' - 40' of water since it is a 582L with chartplotter?

2) About your negative "thing" about the Furuno's. Is the detail displayed on the Furuno's machine in the 200Hz in shallow water? Or are you just saying that one would need to be "lucky" to be directly over the fish with a narrow beam cone?

3) I assume you have a transom 46/10 degree ducer? Airmar does have 45/15 degree ducer's for In-hull and Thru-hull. Would one of these ducers make a difference?

Thank in Advance and to others prior input on this!

- Nick

[Reel Smoker]

I recently flush mounted a Garmin 188c.The fishfinder works very good even though I went with a shoot thru the hull transducer.I use the Furuno when I slow down to mark fish and the Garmin when Im running,it marks fish better than I thought it would.The chart in color is awesome.I do have to mention im sending it back to Garmin someone touched the screen while it was warm and left finger prints on it which I tried to clean with alcohol wipes as per Garmins intruction and ruined the screen,which pissed me off after spending around 1500.00 hopefully they'll take care of this problem. Just in case if you have or get a color Garmin machine don't touch the screen, RS.

[ltdan]

HAS ANY ONE SEEN THE NEW CP1000C PLOTTER/GPS FROM STANDARD HORIZON? I SAW IT AT THE MIAMI BOAT SHOW,AND EVERONE WAS TALKING ABOUT IT. 10.4" COLOR SCREEN,THAT'S DAYTIME VIEWABLE. WITH A MICROPROCESSOR THAT WORK'S AT UNHEARD OF SPEED, 3 YEAR WARRANTEE AND IT'S WATERPROOF. DID I MENTION THE TWO VIDIO INPUT'S FOR A REMOTE CAMERA OR DVD/VHS/NINTENDO. THIS THING BLEW AWAY ANYTHING AT THE SHOW. AT THE SHOW YOU COULD GET ONE FOR $1600 BUC'S,,,,, MINE'S ON ORDER. CMB,DO SOME HOMEWORK,THIS THING IS USER FRIENDLY AND HAS A LOT MORE TO OFFER THAN I'VE MENTIONED. THE WORLD BASE MAP AND CARTOGROPHY ALONE IS WORTH THE PRICE OF ADDMISSION. LT DAN. P.S. CONGRAT'S ON THE RIG

[CMBarnes]

Thanks for all of the info. I am still researching. I have a month or so before I need to make the final step. Y'all have been very helpful. The more info the better off I am. Thanks again, CMB

[Tom Bare]

Nick,

Yep with the 16 and 1850's. It is not a machine issue, rather a transducer issue. I do have the rransom mount, but don'tt know if 15 would be enough [thru-hull]. It really depends on the depth,

The problem you have in marking fish is that the unit wil not mark an arch. Every fish is a straight line. That's pretty tough, especially when the fish are on or near the bottom. Bait pods are nothing but blobs, no lighter sghading in the middle or outsides to show what size or how thick they are. The fish thing is liek having your boat shut down and not moving- and having fish swim under the xducer. and yes, I had the scroll rate maxed and was making 6-8 knots when trying to mark. Nothing but the old flatline!

I am surprisingly pleased with my X-16. I have an original paper graph x-16 and that was the ;ast Lowrance I bought. Resolution is 640 vertically, thus excellent target separation, colors are vivid. Can't comment re sunlight as mine is mounted in the shade. They give you a background color option; white or blue. I use the blue as it seems easier on my eyes.

Good luck,
Tom.

[cSickNick]

Hi Tom & All,

After much research i ordered and received yesterday the Furuno 1850WF. I have heard many good things about the Furuno 582L finder, and since the 1850WF incorporates the 582L finder and for a few $$ more a chartplotter, made sense to me.

I was concerned about the Furuno machine not being able to mark fish in shallow water as you mentioned. I have a few settings on this machine to play with that may help ? (sounds like you already tried them) adjusting gain, picture advance, range, TVG 200kHz, etc ... There is also a "white marker" function to help discriminate fish echoes near the bottom. Since if fish generally in deeper water, it is not much of a concern.

There is some good (and bad) info on the "cone angle" of the THT site. My opinion, is that some vendors are "cheating" on increasing the cone angle. I based this on AIRMAR cone angle specs are different on vendor sites that use the AIRMAR transducer and that the "cheating" wider cone angle dual frequency ducers are made directly by the vendor(specs unknown), where as the single frequency ones are made by AIRMAR.

I got a serious headache from this cone angle stuff, that for the most part, i ignored cone angle specs. Obviously the sounder vendor is going to match the sounder with the best spec transducer. As a general statement, i would agree that 200kHz at 21 degree cone angle would be best for shallow water.

The most helpful info is this forum. Having someone test and compare units side by side and give us the feedback as you did and others!

Feedback from me to follow ..... if it ever stops snowing!

- Nick