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Last year I was toying with digital radar, but few standalone units and I had the Simrad Cruise 9 Sounder/GPS which I'm kinda happy with. Figured when I got more serious I'd upgrade transducer to a through hull as the transom mount in waterbag sitting in bilge give just ok soundings. I figured this was the year as the plug fell apart trying to remove. Shopped transducers and found for the Simrad Cruise...don't bother, the unit will not take advantage of a better transducer...actually it will lose some. Now I'm a bit bummed as this is as good as it gets apparently.

So started considering a new depth finder...so many choices. Huge price range, standalone or multi and everything seems to need a Black Box. Last year I was thinking of radar, simple, small but hardly any standalone units.

Anyway...this year I have the standard replacement transducer to get the year going. But considering an upgrade...where do I start. I plan to jump on a few friends boats to play with their electronics, but figure always good to ask here. What are you running, happy with it? If you could upgrade, what would you be looking for. What would you stay away from.

I just did this - upgraded to Furuno Touch 10TZL and FCV-600 which can run chirp when I switch out the transducer

Also have the Satellite Compass (SCX-20) and Heading Sensor (PG-700). Have a Furuno FM4800 VHF on back order which will give me back up GPS and AIS as well as VHF. I didn't replace the radar - Networked them all together (and did some cleaning up and labeling of all the wires and connectors)







probably could have saved some money on Simrad or Lowrance - but had a few Furuno items (and scored the Heading and Compass on Facebook market place for cheap) both give pretty decent accuracy

Carl

The black box is only required if you want to super upgrade the unit. Garmin will do Chirp without the black box. Add the black box and the fish will jump in the boat. LOL

Jeremy, where did you get those wire labels?

I bought a Dymo Rhino label maker on Facebook market place and it prints on heat shrink tube labels
https://www.labelcity.com/dymo-rhino-rh ... rink-tubes

Wonder if they make similar for the Brother label maker.

Nice job Jeremy...kinda wish I didn't see as that is on my to do list. Not sure if better or worse, but I get to do all that work in the head, everything is right behind and above the thrown. Good light, not bent over or crawling under anything...but still not fun. Especially when I drop something which falls into a bad spot...always happens. Like leaving a screwdriver on a gunnel for "Just a Second".

I like the big screen, how do you like touch screen on a moving boat, damp moving boat? Happy with the sounder?

Well I chose the Furuno because it also has buttons and knobs for control. It's one of the things that I don't like about the Lowrance HDS 9 that I have on my other boat (it has buttons - but no knob to zoom in or zoom out - have to hit the + or minus buttons or pinch the screen)


I started out with the FCV 600 because I had an older transducer and didn't want to change it (just had the bottom redone) this works with bot CW and Chirp transducers - so when I upgrade to chirp next bottom job it will work with that too, For now it keeps the bottom and seems to do a good job - the screen on my older fish finder was degrading - so this is a big performance and clarity upgrade. They do make heat shrink labels for the brother - was looking for either when this Dymo came up for sale. My wiring panel is also in the head - will be diving into that at some point in the future

Carl,

It might entertain you that I seriously consider installing a...compass on my boat!

I have Furuno TZT3 16F paired with a 3 KW transducer. It also requires a amplifier. In my world, I have a lot of deep water. I can easily see fish detail at 2000 ft. I typically deep drop in the 300 to 1400 feet. I can read bottom at 8,000 to 10,000 feet in the right conditions. Using the HF of 170 khz, I can see fish at 1500 feet and with the low frequency of 44 khz I can see fish down to 3000 feet plus

I installed the transducer which is about the size of a shoebox in a pocket just behind the rear bulkhead between the engines on the centerline of the boat. This unit has worked out pretty well

I also have the Furuno side scan unit which I'm not to happy with. I have the Furuno Navpilot autopilot which is pretty nice and was relatively easy to install. It has a few quirks to learn but its been very reliable.

I will be adding a radar at some point primarily to locate birds otherwise I have little use for a radar.

I am planning on installing night vision camera. Currently the top of the list is a Boat Eye 360 which is about $1500. I'm still researching these units. Flir is too expensive for the benefit I would get out of it.

10,000 feet…wow that’s further then some of my fishing trips. lol. Serious system you have there. But if your fishing in your condions what you have makes sense. I’d say 70% of my fishing is in the bay at 15-25', maybe 40-50’ in the ship channels. My offshore trips may see 300’.

Yannis, go for the compass. Fog or dark night they come in handy.

Jeremy

That label maker did a nice job on those heat shrink tubes. I have to look into that.

Thanks Tony - I started as an "I'll just install this depth finder because the screen is delaminating" to, well - would be nice if I could exchange bottom info on both displays - so ended up with the 10TXL touch - to - I need to label these wires - to full on down the rabbit hole on the Facebook Marine Electric group and all their work that they post. Even though my boat had been rewired at some point - there were still several wires that that were not attached to anything

Carl - I recommend starting with the transducer and building up from there. A 1 kilowatt, fairing block style or thru-hull, would probably work well for you. A single band medium CHIRP is a good all around choice - https://www.airmar.com/Catalog/Marine/C ... hull/B285M The big trick to transducers is the mounting location....you must find the correct mounting spot or it will not work well. Find someone that has already gone through the pain and copy their installation. My hull resembles Swiss cheese and I am still searching. All my locations suffer from aeration problems at speeds above 10 knots. I've tried fairing blocks, thru-hulls, and transom mounts. Air and sonar do not mix.

I think all the other equipment is a matter a personal choice. They all work. The only recommendation I can make is to buy 2 MFD units that network together. It is sooooo nice to seamlessly swap information from screen to screen.

Cam

That's an interesting way of going about the search Cam. I do not see myself going with the massive fairing blocks thru hulls ( had one shear off) but a flush mount bronze, already have my old Furuno CRT flush mount sitting in hull. So, a 1kw with Med Chirp and work backwards. I'll have to look closer and see. Thanks.

Buying electronics has gotten a lot more complicated than just buying a transducer. Like many other products Marine electronics manufacturers have gone to proprietary branded transducers. Also many retailers have no clue what they are selling. I have been given very expensive bad information by people who should know.

Complex? Absolutely!

Airmar has fought back some on the proprietary transducer trend. They offer some of their most popular models with a mix and match cable to adapt to the major brands. That B285M is one available as mix and match. If you don't want a fairing block, the B175M is the thru-hull version and also a mix and match model. I have one installed on the 25 connected to a Simrad MFD...works great under 10mph...aerates above. I use it when on the troll. The 1kW units require a large hole...almost 4" diameter. Make sure to order the 20 degree tilted version.

good luck!
Cam

I should add: Most of the higher end MFDs will support 1kW+ and some have dual channels that allow you to run 2 separate transducers at different frequency ranges to cover 50k hz to 200khz all at once, or add side scan and down scan functions. $$$ Almost all of the medium range MFDs can handle 1kw transducers. It all depends on if you are cruising, fishing, or seriously fishing and the depth ranges that you do all of these things. That's one reason to start with the transducer(s), then pick the MFDs and all the other gear.

Carl

Take a look at the Airmar flush mount. Requires a 4 inch hole but it lays flush with the hull. You will need the one with the 20 degree offset.

I have mine on the starboard side of the centerline in the companionway. I have never had turbulence issues well unless when cutting the bay, I have a boat in front of me. Then I sometimes loose the bottom when running directly behind them.

It just takes some courage to drill that 4 inch hole.

I have an Airmar 20 degree bronze flush mount installed just off the keel to port inside the cabin. I installed for my Furuno CRT sounder many moons ago before I upgraded. Like, Cam said "proprietary transducer" it worked with the new Furuno till that unit died, the Simrad is not compatible...Well kinda not, I can buy a spice box for $300 or so plus an adapter cable for a $100 or so. Then found out the transducer would work, but not great, so why bother.

Guess I could buy another Furuno...but the transducer was great tech back when I bought...from what I understand it's just ok today so what am I gaining.

I should just put my old CRT Furuno back on the boat. I think it is still in the basement here...maybe even have a spare from dad. It was a good unit, just a big unit, small screen. Then again I'm comparing that unit to what we used before...paper and stylus...tick tick tick all day long.

Carl,

It's no fun unless you spend lots of money! Do they still have Loran towers where you are?

Which Airmar do you have? They still make a few 300 and 600 watt transducers, but not many. You will be amazed with 1kw chirp. If that spot holds bottom for you, then that's the spot! You just need to make the hole a little bigger

CamB25 wrote: ↑May 6th, '26, 07:58 Carl,

It's no fun unless you spend lots of money! Do they still have Loran towers where you are?

Cam - you're not keeping up with my conversations with Yannis. I'm still on Chart,Compass and Stopwatch...I'm waiting for the prices on the Lorans to drop before I dive in. LOL

CamB25 wrote: ↑May 6th, '26, 07:58 You just need to make the hole a little bigger

Hmmm, I'm usually called a Big Hole.

CamB25 wrote: ↑May 6th, '26, 07:58 Carl,
Which Airmar do you have? They still make a few 300 and 600 watt transducers, but not many. You will be amazed with 1kw chirp.

I am not sure which transducer aside from Airmar, 20 degree and uses Airmar Transducer Cable #C47 wit Furuno 10F connector. Speaking of that backs up what Rick was saying about bad information. I asked a dealer tech which transducer I had, they told me to get the cable # and connector and they should be able to tell me. I call back and the guy I spoke to this time told me, nope can't tell you with that information.

Friend is upgrading his transducer to a thru hull Chirp, I'll have to take a ride with him and see for myself.

Money, spend lots of it...Eh, not overly opposed but electronics always seem to kick me in the butt. After I buy, and install I find out I should have not bought this and went with that. I find I like unit and it quits...return for service and they don't fix "these" anymore. Or they will but new unit is cheaper.
Whatever, it's my problem.

Carl,

What does a stopwatch do in plotting? I almost start understanding what a compass does, but a stopwatch? LOL!!!

Carl wrote: ↑May 6th, '26, 09:12
Money, spend lots of it...Eh, not overly opposed but electronics always seem to kick me in the butt. After I buy, and install I find out I should have not bought this and went with that. I find I like unit and it quits...return for service and they don't fix "these" anymore. Or they will but new unit is cheaper.
Whatever, it's my problem.

Buyer's remorse. It's part of the game. I'm stuck with my setup for a while...it's clunky at best!

If you ride on your friend's boat with CHIRP, you will soon deploy your credit card! I have used https://thegpsstore.com/ for a ton of gear over the years. Good folks.

There is a guy - Gil Travis on thehulltruth.com that sells all sorts of equipment - I've bought a few items from him - but he's a good source of what works with what - and from my experience - a straight shooter. he had the best price on the Furuno items too

Semperfifishing..Gil Travis
MARINE ELECTRONICS & TRANSDUCER SALES
1-800-925-0341 or Cell 209 840-0577
For Electronics Sales & Technical Support.
travis.g@sbcglobal.net

Yannis,
Compass provides a heading, RPM gives speed, stopwatch tells distance traveled or the amount of time it takes to get from point A to B, at a certain speed and heading.

10 nautical miles takes 30 minutes when traveling 20 knots on a steady heading. Wind, current and tide aside.

10 nautical miles takes forever when going in a circle.



Jeremy, good to know. When I figure out what questions I have, I'll reach out to him. Thx

Yannis

Good thing you weren't Columbus's navigator. He never would have found the New World.

Carl

Come on, bite the bullet, drill the 4-inch hole.

Tony, you'll be surprised! Without fog and during daylight I'm very good at that!
(I did it once with fog, it was suicidal...I still think of it and jump from my bed...)

I have bought alot of stuff from Gil. He is a good source for Garmin but doesn't fully understand Furuno equipment. His pricing is fair but do your research first before buying and ordering stuff.

I saw a large grouper on my machine at 1500 feet the day before yesterday. The fish was on the top of a peak that rose about 50 off the bottom. I wish I had taken a screen shot of the fish finder for you guys. I was using the HF at 170 khz on my unit.

When buying transducers call Airmar direct and ask them for a unit and what is the best equipment to pair it with. Personally a 1 kw unit with 16 elements is the smallest I'd consider. A good transom mount is the Airmar TM 265 which is chirp.

I have found the internal sounders in chart plotters as being very limited in water over 600' of depth. If you're spending the money on the plotter and transducer my might as well buy the amplifier and transform your system into a great fishfinder.

Ironworker wrote: ↑May 9th, '26, 07:20 I have found the internal sounders in chart plotters as being very limited in water over 600' of depth. If you're spending the money on the plotter and transducer my might as well buy the amplifier and transform your system into a great fishfinder.

Till I change locations The Boat n I will not see 600' of depth. Deepest are the occasional inshore trips to Mudhole n out that sees 230'. 90% is in the Raritan Bay seeing 15-24' with some ship channels to 40', or Ambrose from VZ Bridge out a bit past Rockaway is 50-60' but I often work the edges n back to 30-40'. 1KW, isn't that kinda overkill? Or will the differentiation be worth it. Goes back to I need to get on friends boats n play with their toys n see in actual use.

carl,

I currently run B&G variants that are the same as simrad and have their 3inone transducer, I loose bottom at 15kts and recently bought the B175HW as it has a wider cone and is better when the seas are <600'. I am not going to get to the canyons on my boat so I do not need greater.

I plan to have one transducer hooked up to each of my 2 displays. one so I can do side scan, the 1kw on the other, so I should be able run both while actively fishing.

as Tony mentioned earlier, I am a bit scared about drilling the hole purely based upon what Cam has mentioned as I do not want to swiss cheese my boat.

If I can make up my mind where to place the ducer, I should be able to show side by side 2 different ducers and what they show.

one other point I would like to second on electronics, the pure flat touch screen looks good but is a pain when under way, having a knob to adjust far superior to touching plus or minus with wet hands or bouncing around.

Matt,

Where are you installing the B175HW?

Here is an electronics horror story which is ongoing.

I purchased a Furuno TZT3 12F for my center console which lives in the Bahamas fulltime. It is paired with a B175HM and a B175L chirp transducers with Mix and Match cables.

After installing the system and having problems with the depthfinder I found after extensive research and many phone calls to Furuno and Gemco that the first set of Mix and Match cables sold to me were the wrong cables. Take care what you order off the internet. I ordered a new set of Mix and Match cables which are the correct cables (supposedly). I also order the Y cable adapter to get two transducers to connect to the single transducer port on the TZT3 12F. The Y cable took 18 months to arrive!

After installing the new M&M cables and Y adapter cable, I still cannot get the depthfinder to work. After several days of trouble shooting and multiple phone calls to Furuno and Gemco, I still have no resolution on the problem. It appears that the M&M cables may be wired incorrectly with everyone blaming the other party. I have been waiting a week for an answer specifically to two questions.

1. Are the Mix and Match cables actually wired incorrectly? Supposedly they are running it through the engineering department.
2. If the cables are bad, How will I know which M&M cables to buy that aren't bad? (apparently there is no answer to this question)

So this issue has been ongoing for over TWO years with no resolution. That means no depthfinder on a boat, which means no fishing with this boat.

Shopping for electronics is a big deal these days. A guy is investing $6,000 to $10,000 for even a medium sized Center console but the lack of technical service support is appalling.

When swapping out the old in hull transducer I noticed a nice crack in the housing. New one seems to work a bit better…not great, just better…but need more time to play. I do not think all the frequencies were working right before, scrolling thru them now shows different bottom detail that I wasnt getting.

I did find I’m not a fan of softkeys. In one screen i push the Check button to accept, another screen its push the knob to accept. Sometimes i need to scroll with the knob, other times the arrow key. I prefer dedicated keys n knobs.

Also like Matt said pure flat looks great, but can be a pain when moving, cold hands, wet hands. I have issues in the car n with phone n ipad screens not reacting to my touch. Its one thing to miss an exit as the screen wouldn’t zoom in enough to see, its another if you miss a buoy n go into low to no water.


Ai-
Simrad, B&G, and Lowrance are leading marine electronics brands owned by Navico Group, which operates as a division of the Brunswick Corporation.

Crazy how everything is kinda owned and operated under a parent company. It’s all kept different enough to compete against one another, not be completely compatible and where they could just make a combined best unit, they don’t.

The search continues…from land as it’s cold n rain rain and more rain after a couple,e days of sweltering heat…100° driving home Wednesday and into AC, put the heat on Friday. Crazy…

For the vast majority of people Garmin will be the goto brand. In fact when I was shopping for the electronics package, every electronics installer I visited with all recommended Garmin.

Garmin makes good equipment but the quality of the depthfinders is not great especially where I boat in the Bahamas. I went with Furuno on the B31 but I installed everything myself.

Garmin's depthfinders work fine in gently sloping terrain such as much of the east coast of the US. My problem with them is the sharply sloping terrain we have on the bottom here in the Bahamas. Our shelf in lots of places drop off at 100' to a slight shelf at 1200' then on down to 2000 and beyond. That confuses Garmins processing CPU or software. I used a Garmin here for 10 years.

Furuno's depthfinder handles the dropoffs much better.

My setup is similar to Ironworker's. Big transducer in the center keel, size of a shoe box. However, I have always used Garmin and am staying with them. I didn't realize what he said about the drop offs and Garmin vs Furuno...oh well, I'll deal with it. We do have drop offs that just plummet as Rick says.

SteveM wrote: ↑May 25th, '26, 00:05 My setup is similar to Ironworker's. Big transducer in the center keel, size of a shoe box. However, I have always used Garmin and am staying with them. I didn't realize what he said about the drop offs and Garmin vs Furuno...oh well, I'll deal with it. We do have drop offs that just plummet as Rick says.

Steve,

Another reason, I went with Furuno was the charting issue. Garmin is solely Navionics charts which are terrible in the Bahamas. Furuno has CMAP which has the underlying Explorer Charts. The Explorer Charts are by far the best in the Bahamas. However while head above Navionics charts the CMAP depth contours are still not accurate.

If I get up to Abaco or you down to Spanish Wells perhaps we can compare the two units side by side dealing with the sharp drop offs. I would love to send that video to Garmin.

We have the drops offs too…just have to head out 100 miles or so to the canyon and down it goes. If I was fishing or navigating those waters I’d rule out much of what I’m considering for higher power units.

But I am not going there on my boat. I’d like something capable of 2-300’ for the few inshore /offshore trips. Mostly good bottom lock for structure, fishing sides of channel, rock piles n wrecks in 15-50’ or so. I’d like to pick out fish under the tons of bait schools we have at times.

In my questioning here n around marina I’ve heard something kind of telling to me…side and forward scanning option is rarely brought up as a must have feature. Chirp, thru hull, larger screens and Furuno ( either it’s what they have or what they compare their units to) are often brought up.

Side scanning is a good feature especially in water under 200'. I like to run with the side scanning mode turned on. In that depth of water you're going to want the High wide transducer.

Rick-
The more I look and consider the more I see myself heading to a no frills, solid machine, ample power with CHIRP and flush bronze thru hull. 600w minimum seems to be more then ample power for my deepest intended use of 200'. However, I expandable to upgrade if need changed. I do want dedicated keys and / or knob, 6-9" screen would be fine.
FCV 600 seems to be hitting the wants. the 800 would be a splurge. Still looking and considering, but that seems to be my comparison unit.

Carl,

Everyone on the internet loves to spend other peoples money! Even if the deepest you will ever get is 200', I still recommend the 1KW transducer. You will get better target separation and performance. The High Wide tranducer would be a good choice.

Now regarding Chirp, I'm not sold on it even though I have 3 boats with chirp. It may be just me but a 200kz and 50kz transducer worked just fine but most of the new fish finders are chirp so you would be backing up by not buying a chirp transducer.

Carl

I have a Garmin 8612. Touch Screen. Yes sometimes bouncing and touching is an issue but hasn't caused a problem for me.

I find Garmin to be simple to operate, they seem to be pretty much self explanatory and easy to install.

I find Furuno, while an excellent machine, more complicated and probably overkill for our area.