Posted by Greg Walters on October 01, 2002 at 08:26:31:
In Reply to: fishfinders? posted by Chris f on September 29, 2002 at 08:28:27:
: I have been looking at fishfinders and could use some advice. The piranha 2 appeals for price and Ive heard good things about their performance. The piranha 5 and the eagle fisheasy 2 boast wider cone angles which could be brilliant in shallow water.
: Any thoughts?
Chris f,
It all depends on how wide an area you want/need to cover with your depth sounder. The Piranha 2 uses a 24 degree cone angle (measured at the -10db point), so you would be looking at approximately a 4.2 foot diameter area at 10 feet deep (water depth X 0.42). This will be for both the bottom and any targets in between the transducer and the bottom. The Piranha 5 uses a dual beam/dual frequency transducer that will show bottom coverage using a 20 degree cone angle and a 53 degree cone angle for target information. This means that you will be looking at a slightly smaller area of the bottom in 10 feet of water (3.5 foot area - water depth X 0.35) than the Piranha 2 will but a larger for target information (10 foot area - water depth X 1.00). The other differences are in the display and some additional menu selections in the Piranha 5. The Piranha 2 uses a 128 vertical pixel STN type LCD display while the Piranha 5 uses a 160 vertical pixel FSTN type LCD display. For the same physical sized displays, the more vertical pixel equals better displayable resolution and a smoother looking display. The STN type LCD has the blue colored pixels (or dots) and the FSTN type display has the black colored pixels. Plus, the Piranha 5 transducer has a built in temperature probe, if surface water temperature is important to you.
Hope that helps your decision,
Greg Walters
Product Test and Calibration Technician
Techsonic Industries
(Humminbird)
greg.walters@techsonic.com