Get the right Fish Finder or GPS Fish Finder - Part Two

Fish finder and GPS fish finder come in many flavors. Make sure you know your options. In part two I will review two more important features, power and depth capabilities.

Fish finder Power

Power is rated a couple of ways by fishfinder manufacturers.
Output power levels are often quoted as peak pulse power, peak-to-peak pulse power, RMS power or average power. (Root-mean-square, RMS power is an engineering measurement means for equating the total energy in an alternating current waveform to the average or heating power in a direct current circuit.) ~ Chuck Husick
The important thing to remember (generally speaking) is that the deeper you need to see, the more power required. Salt water also affects the power required, it will reduce the effective depth at which the finder will operate.
Power will effect the depth a finder can operate to. The more power, the deeper the fishfinder (depth finder or sonar) will operate. Power also helps give a sharper image of pings on the screen. For shallow water fishing, most any fish finder has the power you need.
Fish finder Depth
Depth capability is a function of both power and the transducer sensitivity. Bronze through hull transducers generally produce better results for sounders (fish finders) that need to see deep bottom structure. The expensive bronze transducers will go deeper and see better than an inexpensive transom mount transducer operated on the same fishfinder.

Practical Sailor
Article on fish finders


Fish-Lectronics
Fish-Lectronics carries inventory of parts and accessories for the following brands; Lowrance, Eagle, Humminbird, Garmin, Vexilar, BottomLine, and Raymarine.

Topic Tags: depth finder, fish finder, fish finder power, fish finder sonar, fishfinder transducer, fish finder transducer, rating fishfinders, transducer