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It used to be true
that a transducer’s sensitivity was closely tied to how narrow a
frequency it could ping at, but the innovators at Airmar have developed
a recipe of acoustic materials and a build process that flips that truism
on its ear, so to speak. Already available in several high-end transducers,
like the 2-kW R199 in-hull model shown, is a 200-kHz element that actually
broadcasts from 150 to 280 kHz. The immediate result, according to Airmar,
is that existing fishfinders get more information to better discriminate
individual fish in a school, as well as fish close to the bottom and shallow
bottom itself. The assertion is backed up by the fact that manufacturers
like Furuno and Raymarine like what they see so much that they plan switching
to the broadband-added models despite the $100-plus increase in cost.
But this is just the beginning. Airmar hopes to bring broadband down to
the low-frequency, deep-water level (especially tricky as there are 15
50kHz elements in that R199), and expects that future fishfinders will
allow users to “tune” to the best frequency, and therefore beam
angle and detail, for various species and environmental situations. The
company expects that broadband transducers will eventually lead to “chirp”
frequency-modulated sonar, and “a quantum leap forward in fishfinder
performance.” Oh boy!
Airmar (
(843) 394-3565. www.airmar.com.
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