Author Topic: Considerations when buying a Fish Finder (Read 5490 times)

Capt. Ed · « **on:** April 05, 2007, 08:31:10 PM »

Boaters … it is just about that time of the year. The day we get ready to “splash” our boats. The covers are coming off and the cleaning gets done. This is also the time that we often consider adding or changing our electronics.

If you go into your friendly marine electronics store looking for a new fish finder (depth sounder), you will see beautiful units from many companies that all have different features. You will probably have a sales guy whispering in your ear about how “powerful” that new fish finder is. How do you avoid making a wrong decision?

First, there is no best unit out there. There are many good units from many good companies. Some of them are Raymarine, Furuno, Lowrance and Garmin. You will learn that once you install the unit you purchase, you will find things wrong with it; things you do not like about it; or a cooler unit that just came out. So, there is no one perfect unit. That is the bad news. The good news is that there are a lot of very good products.

You will hear many things about power. Folks will tell you about peak-to-peak and RMS power and all kinds of other techno-babble. What you need to know is that power is not the most important specification when choosing a fish finder (depth sounder), especially if you intend to fish areas in less than 100 ft. of water.

The most important specification to look at is RESOLUTION. There are a few things that contribute to resolution. The one to look for is PIXEL COUNT, especially VERTICAL PIXEL COUNT (that is the number of pixels up and down your screen).

The bottom line with pixel count is that you should buy the highest pixel count screen that you can afford.

You will see pixel counts being quoted such as 480 x 240 (480 pixels vertical x 240 pixels horizontal/wide). The horizontal pixel count basically shows you the history of what you have gone over (or what has gone under you). A greater horizontal pixel count shows you more history.

Whereas the vertical pixel count shows you details of what is under you. More importantly, the more pixels there are vertically, the more information that will be displayed. If you were to double the amount of vertical pixels on the screen, theoretically you should be able to double the amount of information on the screen.

So, when shopping for a fish finder (depth sounder), consider RESOLUTION first. Then consider power and other features. Oh, by the way, make sure that the transducer comes with the unit before you leave the store or hit the purchase button on your favorite website.

Thanks,

Capt. Ed