CHIRP Sonar technology
 

http://www.lowrance.com/Root/Lowranc...P_Brochure.pdf

Looks like these are available for garmin and lowrance. Does anyone have one of these or seen it in action? After reading the literature, it seems like a good investment. Not cheap but...

The real question is how much power does it draw?

Another question
 

Is it the same size transducer ? Or some huge thing that most of us will not be able to mount . Hopefully the amplitude scope problem has been addressed . I have a hdi 7 with warranty from west marine . Thinking of doing claim if conditions are right . :eek:

I had been doing a lot of reading on this before this system came out, and it seems like it will be significantly better than broadband sonar.

The biggest difference will be a cleaner screen, it pick up a lot less crap, and the better target resolution that they talk about. Hopefully this means no more mistaking mackerel for yellows thanks to the ridiculous fast ping speed on their current models.

The only drawback I'm worried about would be accounting for boat heave. The CHIRP is so accurate that marks have been choppy on some models due to the boat moving with the swell. I'm hoping Lowrance installed some software to account for this, but I don't see anything about it.

But yes, personally I will definitely be getting this unit.

I think there are a couple of guys on here running the Dragonfly by Raymarine. It uses CHIRP. Jim Sammons is using it I believe as well, maybe he will give us some insight.

I am using the Dragonfly and the picture is unbelievably clean. Fishing El Cap this past week i could see every detail of brush piles in 40 feet of water including schools of baitfish and crappie on them. Quite amazing this CHIRP technology is.

As for transducer size, the Raymarine transducer isnt small but it isnt overly huge either. More than anything their transducer is long at about 6" however is fairly narrow (maybe 2" tops) and not very tall.

How does it look at depths around 120' and salt water?

Sent from my SPH-L520 using Tapatalk

Imaging in saltwater has been great from what I have experienced however I still have not been in real deep water with it.

On the Raymarine site there are tons of images submitted by users though and some are of depth in salt with beautiful screen shots. Without a doubt cleaner imaging all the way around.

Would it fit the lowrance transducer on the new hobies?

I believe someone recently did it and posted pics on here. I think that since it's a little long though it extends past the transducer shield but still fits within the well.

the elite-7 chirp looks like the same price as the elite-7hdi was last year.

also looks like there is a 100 rebate on them. 669 for the e-7 chirp w/gold.:D

good luck!