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hey everyone uh welcome to another

session of tech talk

uh votingtechtalk.com you're here uh

thanks for joining us let's geek out uh

we're gonna be talking uh about

navigation

lars asks jeff i've seen some

manufacturers label their sounders as

forward scanning side view or down view

what do you recommend

mars

thank you for uh bringing a question

that um many of us sort of pondered well

first of all the reality is that there

is

there are features and then there's

marketing words to describe those

features right so all the words that you

use like forward scanning side view down

view

some of those words are proprietary

right like side view down view is

i believe something that garmin talks

about

and different manufacturers have

different words to describe the same

thing as a way for them to differentiate

themselves from others it's you know it

happens in all industry including our

own the marine industry

so let's uh taking away the words and

let's give them a definition that we can

all agree on right

so

traditionally you have

dev sounders that just give you sort of

depth that's a number right

it's a transducer sends an echo

measures the time

between sending and receiving and gives

you calculates and gives you depth

pretty straightforward been around for a

while

next level up is sort of these

what would be called fish finders uh

sonar sounders

and these are devices that not only give

you depth but also give you a bottom

profile of the depth and also sort of an

indication of what sort of bottom is

directly underneath your boat

right like

is there a lot of algae grass is it hard

bottom soft bottom and so you can do

that through fish finders and sounders

right and so

obviously the fish find the guys and

gals are out there fishing they know all

about fish finders and that's sort of

you know the main purpose for those

towers that being said though the rest

of us who are cruisers might benefit

from having a

what is otherwise known as a fish finder

just to actually be able to see the

bottom profile over time right because

it's not important so much what the

depth is

that's one thing but it's really about

the trend right so if we're on our boats

and we're going slowly at one knot and

the depths 100 and then three seconds

later it's at 80

three seconds later it's at you know

again it's at 60

and three seconds later now it's at 40.

so nine seconds and you drop 60 feet

you know all of us should be panicking

right so it's all about the trends and

it's not to say of course you know i

realize that

bottoms are not always predictable we

have those rocks here called pinnacle

rocks that come out of the ocean out of

nowhere like literally like a pinnacle

out of nowhere and yes they do happen

but that being said there are patterns

right and it's better have something

than nothing

and so a fish finder is really useful uh

in the ability to actually follow the

bottom profile

and it's useful for anchoring uh and

it's useful to sort of

always know what sort of depth you were

have were behind you a few seconds or

maybe 10 20 seconds ago depending on the

speed of your vessel right because it

shows you a histogram right what the

depth was as you're moving forward so

that's useful

the next ones are two types of uh sonars

right you have what are called side view

and uh i believe hummingbird actually

came up with that technology years ago

and we had installed that on a lot of

police folks

and that's what you'd actually see on

either side of your vessel right

and uh so you're actually looking not so

much down right but actually and it's

hard for me to do this because my arms

are gonna be out of the camera but

you're actually looking on either side

of the vessel

now of course it doesn't work at high

speeds and there's a maximum death ratio

to

uh how wide you can go and there's all

these specs and again these are really

useful um a lot of boaters who are into

fishing will actually i use it to find

bait balls right or to see structure

underneath ledges or not also very

useful for anchoring

so definitely some boaters out there uh

that are going in anchorages that aren't

always sandy bottoms and have rocky

ledges and it's you know

you're curious because sometimes the

depth underneath our hall might be you

know 10 feet

maybe you know 5 meters 10 meters

but literally 20 feet to the right or 20

feet to the left partner starboard right

now there's a ledge right and

sometimes we don't always stay at where

we are the wind blows us over and so it

might be a good thing to consider having

a depth sounder that looks on either

side of your hall and i did that on my

boat by the way i have one of those def

sounders i always wanted one i didn't

get it right away uh but i installed

that on my sailboat last year and i'm

happy i did that

so not only do i have a down right so

like a fish finder i also have a

fish finder that looks on either side of

the home

and that's really useful for going in

like difficult bankruptcies where i'm a

little bit nervous and i'm pushing

myself but you know that's part of the

fun right

and then the last one was ford scan

ford scan is a product that's been

around for years um there's a company

that garmin bought i believe it's

interface which

gave them this forward scanning

capability and it's really what it is

it's sort of like radar but looking

forward i mean it's not for everyone

right depending some some voters are

concerned about hitting that transducer

that is actually exposed that's happened

to a few of our voters here in the

pacific northwest not that often but it

still hurts because when that happens

you've got to replace the transducer and

that's out of pocket it's going to fail

and not make a hole in your boat it's

meant to break easily but it still hurts

right some boaters that go

here in the pacific northwest that go in

places that are a little like literally

uncharted like uh the west side of idaho

or are going in the inside passage and

are going in legumes and stuff like that

and they're really pushing the

boundaries of their anchoring uh gun

calling will actually also use sports

camp

it's

probably not

what we all hope for but i think we

might have unrealistic expectations of

having a radar that looks forward and

sees logs uh just directly ahead of our

vessels so it's about more aligning your

expectations with what's possible as

opposed to being disappointed with the

product right it's really what are we

expecting and what's really realistic so

all different price points uh gets from

where i started the least expensive to

the most expensive right so

and then you got to decide what makes

sense for your boat what are you gonna

do for your boat because at the end of

the day remember with this there's no

such thing as you need all of this right

like all of us need a depth sounder that

i think we can pretty much agree with

pretty much universally beyond that it

depends on your budget what are you

doing and really about your level of

safety or your level of comfort right

how comfortable you would risk what are

you going to do to minimize it

some of us use gadgets some other ones

use a lot more common sense and better

preparation so it's really up to us

but a great question lars and thanks for

asking

if you're curious we've written whole

articles about this go on our website

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