Physical pulse?

[Beefer]

I was told today that if you put your hand on a transducer (wet hand if out of water), you can feel the pulse of the signal. Is there any truth as far as you know? If it's true, I need a new transducer...

 

[DJ]

Re: Physical pulse?

I can't say that I've ever felt one but I can definetely hear them while SCUBA diving.

 

[drewpster]

Re: Physical pulse?

You can also hear them above water if it is very quiet. Sort of a sharp clicking sound.

 

[CATransplant]

Re: Physical pulse?

Yah. If you turn the locator on and get near the transducer when it's quiet, you can hear the tic-tic-tic sound pretty clearly.

As someone said, you can definitely hear it from underwater. So can the fish, or feel it in their lateral lines, anyhow. I did an experiment on two consecutive days with the same weather at my favorite lake. Same weed flat. The first day, I used my electric trolling motor to maneuver my boat while casting for largemouths and northern pike...with the locator on. The second day, I did the same, but with the locator off. My catch was much better the second day, with larger fish. Now, I shut the thing off when I'm actually fishing.

 

[dingbat]

Re: Physical pulse?

I assume you?re talking about the audible click that you can sometimes hear from a transducer. I generally associated that noise with a transducer going bad.

 

[Silvertip]

Re: Physical pulse?

Then there are a lot of brand new transducers going bad.

 

[dingbat]

Re: Physical pulse?

Then there are a lot of brand new transducers going bad.

The click you hear is a by product of the method of exciting the ceramics. The frequency of the click can be changed beyond the human audible range buy modulating the signal to the transducer, adding sound absorbing materials around the element and by changing the compostion of the transducer housing.

The design of the head unit and the transducer has a lot to do with whether or not you hear clicking from your transducer so you?re correct; a clicking transducer isn't necessarily a bad transducer.

For a unit to suddenly start clicking when it didn't before then that's a different story.