Re: Electronics???
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
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