October-first week of Nov

[B-Faithful]

Originally Posted by mark1234

Greg- do you have to change the gain between the two? While using the 200, I only had the gain around 55%. When I switched to 83, I didn't mark anything. When I turned the gain up to around 70% I began to get clutter and bait.

Furuno is really good in auto mode with their "advanced DSP (digital signal processing)" . My unit has two functions, fishing and cruising. I use mine in fishing and usually don't have to touch the gain on the 50kHz side. I turn the gain to +2 (from auto) on the 200kHz side sometimes to pick up the thermoclines. This gives me a little less target discrimination in a bait ball but it shows me where to run my umbrellas for big fish in the spring. If I get too much noise on the 50kHz side, I may turn down the gain to -2 to clear the screen from unwanted returns some. I rarely turn up the low frequency side.

This is the unit I have: http://www.furuno.com/en/products/chartplotter/GP-1870F
It uses the same technology as the Furuno FCV587 and DDF1 which have won many awards for fishfinders. I went with this unit because it was about the same price as the FCV587 at the time I bought it and because it gave me a back-up GPS. They are dirt cheap right now since Furuno dropped the prices and is now offering a $200 rebate on the units. I think with a p66 they come in at $650 after the rebate right now. (if you want to use as a GPS too, charts cost another $195). Furuno is likely to release a newer version of their fishfinders this winter that includes their newer feature called "rezboost" on their non CHIRP fishfinders. It is already found in their Time Zero Touch 2 units. New stand alone fishfinder will be called the FCV588.

Even if you are an offshore person the unit I have is a great unit since it is a full 1kw capable with the right transducer. It also offers a couple of technology features that are pretty cool. First is bottom discrimination. This gives you probability of what the bottom is made of (sand, rock, gravel, mud) and a great tool for bottom fisherman. The other is Accufish. It is a technology that supposedly tells you the size of the fish by measuring the air bladders between the two frequencies. I dont use it because I rather see the arches myself.

Downside to my unit is that its a widescreen format and not that tall. Some dont like it for deeper water and seeing the water column. However I find that the widescreen splits nicely and I use the splits to my advantage with zooms if necessary..

All other brands are touting single channel CHIRP units right now. CHIRP is when a fishfinder sends out a range of frequencies at once instead of a fixed frequency like we have been discussing. IMHO the single channel CHIRP units havent overly impressed me compared to the Furuno units. I think it is more marketing hype than anything. Furuno does offer CHIRP but it is a true CHIRP unit that is very expensive and requires very expensive transducers. From talking to a Furuno rep, it would be completely over kill for the shallower waters of the bay.