Sonar Discussion

[The Kid]

Lowrance HDS 5 if you want the GPS. If not HDS 5X.

Q1: Higher kHZ means you can read down into deeper water beyond 200 ft depending on finders. Although the band circumference becomes thinner.

Q2: MUST HAVE COLOR! It is extremely important because you can differentiate between different structures such as rocks, kelp, bait schools, predatory fish, squid, etc.

Q3: GPS pretty important around this time of year especially to mark certain areas where squid have bedded. As well as find your way around in the soup fog.

Q4: I like Lowrance products a lot (I love my hds 5x had it for more than a year), garmins seem to be good as well however they don't come with transducers. Pretty stupid! Hummingbird in my opinion. There are some other good ones, but they can get expense like Raymarine and Furuno.

One thing to remember the longer you own a certain finder the more you will learn as far as what is what. There are plenty of anglers out there doing just fine with low end finders. Its like learning anything else in fishing certain things start to become familiar the more you experience it.

Good luck Tom!

[wade]

Thanks for bringing up this subject i was just going to post something similar..

i am contemplating dropping 3-7 biils on a real unit finally..
gps isnt a major factor...but may be nice if there is a comparable unit on the market. I'm leaning towards that HDS-5...
any suggestions greatly appreciated..

[Fiskadoro]

Originally Posted by The Kid

Q1: Higher kHZ means you can read down into deeper water beyond 200 ft depending on finders. Although the band circumference becomes thinner.

That is actually kinda incorrect.

Sonars work with pressure waves or what we consider sound. khz is not describing power but the frequency, pitch or osculation of the sound wave used by the transducer. Essentially the transducer sends out sound then draws it's picture by what returns in the form of an echo. So a transducer acts like a speaker and mic both sending out sound and receiving and logging the reflections or echo returns.

A 200khz or 200,000 cycles per second sound wave gives lots of detail because it sends a lot of waves out per second there is a lot to reflect back but the trade off is that lower frequency sounds carry farther and therefor can give detail from a greater distance.

It's like the rumble of thunder: the further from the storm you are the less crack you hear and the more rumble, or like in a parade where with a marching band you always hear the drums first as they march toward you.

Humans perceive various frequencies of sound waves as various pitch. Musical notes correspond to precise frequencies or hertz. The higher the frequency the higher the note. We can hear sound from 20hz to roughly 20,000 hertz or 20 khz. Sonars use pitches we can not hear, though other animals like whales and dolphins can hear some of the lower frequency sonars.

200khz is standard for shallow water sonars as it gives you good detail in shallow water, lower numbers give you less detail but higher penetration, so the more expensive finders have numerous lower KHZ settings for fishing deep.

For instance a furuno FCV1100 has six khz settings preset for 6000 to 16 feet at 28/38/50/88/107/200kHz

Back on topic the DSI finders are using 455/800 kHz capable transducers. Think of them as supper high pitched sonar. The idea is they should give incredible detail. I have not used one but the science makes sense as these higher frequencies send double to four times the amount of compressed sound in waves per second than a standard 200khz transducer.

More waves means more waves reflected back per second and more data for the finders transducer to pick up and create an image with. Bottom line these finders have more reflected data to work with, and depending on how it's interpreted that should give a much clearer picture of what's down there when in shallow water then traditional 200khz sounders.

The trade off is they do not go as deep. Check the numbers the DSI units are only rated for 250 feet. I'd say that is a little too specialized for me.

No doubt these will be ideal for shallow water bass fishing in freshwater where they rarely fishing in water deeper then 60 feet. My question would be how well do they do in say 100 to 150 feet of water, where I like to fish for Yellows and need to see squid on the bottom.

I also like to go deep occasionally and fish rockfish at 300+ feet. Even at 200khz my current sounder can see them, the DSI I units won't work for fish that deep..

If I was making finders I'd make a dual frequency 200khz 455khz unit that could read to say 400ft but still give more detail in shallow water, but I don't see that on the Lowrance menu.

Jim

[Jzo]

Great topic, thx for sharing everyone.

[TCS]

Here are the specs for the HDS. copied from the Lowrance site. Lower, selectable kiloherz. The sonar power output is described differently than the others, so its a little hard to compare.

	HDS 5
Sonar Frequency	50/200 or 83/200 kHz
Transducer Type	Choice of dual frequency Skimmer®
Sonar Output Power	Max Max 250W Peak to Peak (31W RMS) actual; 30,000W Peak to Peak analog equivalent W
Sonar Depth	Max 5000 ft \ 1524 m

[j mo]

Ha you must have some holiday loot burning a hole in your pocket too. Ive polled quite a few people on this very question.

The DSI models you listed will not be avail till spring, very cool technology however I spoke w Lowrance and this technology is mainy designed for lakes/shallow(er) settings not 150' + though they say it has been tested up tp 200 feet, confirming what Jim posted. However, If you are going to fish shallower settings like ~50 feet you may want to hold out untill it hits the shelves.


I setteld on the The HDS 5 (w out gps) functionality/price. Also The HDS series are upgradable. You can have the DSI technology as well if you want a sonar that is worth more than your yak...


Both Garmin and Lowrance will be intriducing new new technology that will come out over the next 2 years and will be game changing...The fish wont stand a chance, and I might be able to see/find my precious tld 5 along w Daveys Locker

Best

[Iceman]

We talked to Lowrance at a trade show in regards to the new DSI. The transducer has to be mounted in contact with the water, you can not shoot through hull to get the new imaging. The transducer is only the size of a shotgun shell so it should fit in the channels of most kayaks.

I personally think Lowrance has the best built products for the harsher kayak environment.

[Fiskadoro]

Originally Posted by Iceman

We talked to Lowrance at a trade show in regards to the new DSI. The transducer has to be mounted in contact with the water, you can not shoot through hull to get the new imaging. The transducer is only the size of a shotgun shell so it should fit in the channels of most kayaks. I personally think Lowrance has the best built products for the harsher kayak environment.

Yeah I figured that the transducer would have to be in the water to take advantage of the higher frequency, though I did not say it. It makes sense that the higher the frequency the more effect the hull would have on it.

As to the best I'd say that both are good: I'm just used to Garmin and like their GPS technology but it's really a matter of personal choice. I will honestly say I think Lowrance has better imaging. Still you can't beat Garmin when it comes to being waterproof, or standing up to a wet environment.

Jim