transducer

[rgowen]

I have just recently purchased a 272 sailfish. Looking for some feedback on transom or thru hull. Price is an issue but if the quality is that much better on thru hull it may very well be worth it. Let me know your thoughts. Thanks

 

[Coconut330]

Thru hull usually will give a better picture due to cleaner water flow over the surface of the transducer. I don't like transom mounts to easy to get lines cought on and stepped on from people boarding over the transom. In my opinion I would go with the Thru hull if you are using a high end bottom machine for fishing. If you just need to know the depth the transom mount will do.

 

[Pete1313]

Depends alot on budget, what kind of boat you have and what kind of fishing you want to do.

I fish salmon, halibut, shrimp and crab in the San Juan Islands/straits, and occasionally go offshore, but rarely need to see anything deeper than 700 feet.....I have a 600 watt transom mount and it works fine. It can lose bottom when on plane, but usually keeps it. Can't ready any structure when on plane. If I troll, its for salmon, and I'm moving only 3-5 kts, so it reads fine.

A thru hull is by far the best for depth reading, quality of reading, and reading while moving. So if you're an offshore fisherman, I'd go with a minimum 1000 Watt bronze thru-hull transducer.....

The only sucky thing about a thru hull is you have to drill a hole in the bottom of your boat....which no-one really "likes" to do.....

Just my .02.

 

[seasick]

Thru hulls work better in theory but placement is critical. If you get it wrong you have a hole to deal with. It is very helpful to find folks with the same hull who have them and tell you exactly where they put them. Access to the best area for the install may also be difficult. Place it too far aft and turbulence from fittings, inlets etc. can mess up the signal. Place it too far forward the signal gets lost as the boat plains. You also need to get the correct angle model for where the tranducer will be mounted.
There are shoot thru hull transducers too. They get mounted to the inside of the hull and 'see' thru the hull itself ( no hole). They will not work with certain hull materials and don't work if there are air spaces in the hull or the mount. Placement is even more critical than tradition thrus but usually they can be temporarily mounted for testing. Some signal is lost due to the hull material so a more powerful head unit may be needed.
Transoms will work OK too and are the easiest for the DIYer to install Placement is also critical but you have a little more room for adjustments and usually a lot of similar installs to look at.
Decent transom mounts run $75 to $200 depending on brand, and features. The thru hulls can run from the same range into the $1000 and up range ( eg. Airmar).

 

[Seahunter]

The answer to your question depends on the head unit you’re using and what you’re expecting from the unit. Low end, high end unit? Do you want a simple bottom readings or are you looking for max. sensitivity?

A thru hull transducer is going to give you the best sensitivity and bottom performance. A shoot thru is going to give you better bottom performance than a transom mount. But because of the frequency shifts caused by the signal passing thru the hull, the sensitivity will be degraded significantly.

If you want the increased sensitivity, 1kW transducer is a lot more sensitive by design than a 600W unit. but...if money is a problem, it makes absolutely no sense to install a 1 kW transducer (B164) on a 600W head if you only want to know how deep it is. If you want the increased sensitivity, the 1kW transducer is teh way to go. But.....if you don’t have a head unit capable to taking advantage of the increased sensitivity, why spend the extra money?

I'm out for max sensitivity of my personal order of preference:
1. Tilted element, thru hull transducer
2. Transom mount
3. Toss up - Shoot thru transducer or rock on string :mrgreen:

FWIW: I’m running a Furuno FCV 585 with the Airmar B164 tilted element transducer.

 

[rgowen]

I want to thank you all for your help. I was thinking along the same lines as you all have agreed. This makes my decision one with added confidence. Thanks again