Aquatronics Marine

Wide beam fishing transducers September 24, 2010

Wide beam transducers

Traditionally most 200 kHz transducers have a narrow focused beam so fish swimming near the boat can not be seen because they are outside the beam. At 50 kHz, the beam is wider so they are more visible but the resolution and detail is not as sharp. Tightly-spaced fish normally appear on the fishfinder as one large target or “blob”. The SS264W, 200 kHz, wide-beam transducer gives the coverage and resolution so that you do not miss any fish or bait close to the boat. With the SS264W  closely-spaced fish show on the fishfinder screen more as individual targets and as arches.

Wide-beam, 200 kHz  is excellent when trolling or searching for fish in the mid to top of the water column. Ideal for marlin and tuna fishing.  The more normal narrow-beam, 200 kHz works best when bottom fishing in waters up to 120 metres, providing best bottom detail and separation between the bottom tightly-spaced fish targets. From this you can see a combination of wide and narrow beam options gives a versitile situation and a great degree of flexibility.

The addition of the new SS264 switch box to your fish finder set up can give you the wider performance for a 200Khz transducer for most of today’s popular fishfinders.

Airmar transducer switch SB264

The SB264 connects to your  1kW, transducer and SS264W to switch between your new wide-beam transducer and existing narrow-beam transducer. The switch box works with most of Airmar’s 1kW transducers including the B260, M260, B258, and B256 found on most sport fishing boats.

You can leave the existing model in place and add the new  wide beam SS264tilted element transducer. Once wired into the switch box it is easy to select the right transducer for the current application, you can easily toggle between 200 kHz wide (25°) or narrow-beam (6°) fish finding, together with the 50kHz low-frequency operation.

This provides a neat fix for those wanting to add the wide-beam transducer and have more options available.

Good Fishing

Phil

for more information contact us at Aquatronics Marine