Transducer query

[crazymorton]

i recently bought a boat that has 2 transducers and a transducer switch on the dash.
can someone explain why and how it works...and how do i know its working??
many thx

[propdinger]

mate the small one would be for shallow water and the larger one for outside by the looks of it as for the switch you would be better off trying them both in the water and see which one works good in shallow and which one in in deeper water (over 50 feet) i had a similar setup on my old boat but i had to change the leads over i didnt have a switch

[Gone_soft]

These look like either Lowrance or maybe, Eagle transducers. The small one is the 20 degree high speed (skimmer) transducer for 192 or 200 Khz (depending on the age of the sounder) and the larger one is the 8 degree 192 or 200 Khz transducer. The 20 degree transducer is good for shallow to mid depth water and has about a 20 degree sound cone whereas the 8 degree has an 8 degree cone which is suitable for deeper water. Think of it like a spot lamp VS a flood lamp. The spot lamp concentrates the light into a narrower beam and goes further whereas the flood light has a wider beam but does not shine quite so far.

The 20 degree is good for locating reefs and wrecks etc. because of its larger field of view and then switch to the 8 degree to pin point your position on top of the structure. I used to have exactly this set up and found the 20 degree good for water to say 30 metres then i'd switch to the 8 degree. I could actually get a bottom return (in manual mode) on an Eagle ultra III plus which only has a power out put of 75 watts RMS in 200 metres of water. The digital readout gave up at about 160 metres.

These days I'm using a Humminbird legend 3005 deep and cook the fish on the way up with 500 watts.

[littlejim]

I had to pay real money to get the same setup.
Most probably the narrow cone, that's the bigger transducer, will be wired into switch position 2 and the original wide cone into position one.

Try it out in deep water, the narrow cone gives better picture, or hold something under one transducer and switch over and see which position matches the switch number.

If you don't like the way it is connected up to the switch you'll find the connections can be swapped aound, they'll be behind the dash somewhere.

[crazymorton]

thx all.....great help

i love this site....i dont feel so bad about not knowing to much

cant wait till i get some experience and can pass it on to the next gen of newbies