Sounder on the blink... should I buy a fishfinder?

[Mavanier]

My NASA duet sounder has ceased to be... it was never the most reliable of things anyway, IMHO. On leaving Portree at the start of this year's cruise it read a consistent 2.9m from the moment we left the pontoon until we were entering the sound. I turned it off and on again, and it has read a big fat zero ever since. Not impressed! The log side of it might still work for all I know but I never put the paddlewheel in as the GPS is more reliable anyway.

So, I'm not particularly inclined to fix it, unless it's likely to be easy and cheap to do so. What I have noticed, though, is that a fishfinder is actually cheaper than a replacement sounder.

Any particular reasons not to get a ff? And any models to look out for, or to avoid?

Ta

[DaveS]

My NASA duet sounder has ceased to be... it was never the most reliable of things anyway, IMHO. On leaving Portree at the start of this year's cruise it read a consistent 2.9m from the moment we left the pontoon until we were entering the sound. I turned it off and on again, and it has read a big fat zero ever since. Not impressed! The log side of it might still work for all I know but I never put the paddlewheel in as the GPS is more reliable anyway.

So, I'm not particularly inclined to fix it, unless it's likely to be easy and cheap to do so. What I have noticed, though, is that a fishfinder is actually cheaper than a replacement sounder.

Any particular reasons not to get a ff? And any models to look out for, or to avoid?

Ta

I got a cheap fish finder quite a few years ago, maybe 10? It's an Eagle and was well under £100. It's really designed for the American market so it has a transom mount transducer which I epoxied to the inside of my hull. It works really well and I haven't found anywhere deep enough yet to lose signal (I forgot to switch it on when I went through Loch Ness - that would have been a good test!)

Downsides: it claims to be water resistant but there's no IP rating and I wouldn't want to leave it outside permanently; it won't power up remotely, you need to press the Power button then change the default setting from feet to metres then scroll through a set up menu to reduce the sensitivity to give a clear bottom trace: all settings are lost when it's switched off.

[voyager35]

I have a Garmin fish finder working with one of there small chart plotters. it is glued inside of the hull and seems to work just as well as the Raymarine sounder that has a through hull fitting