Two fishfinders on one or two transducers, questions?

[flagator1]

Hello everyone,
new reader, new poster, old boater.

My question envolves trying to figure out how to run two fishfinders at the same time. I have an 18 ft Crestliner with two Eagle 320's. One I want to view in the bow, while casting. The other on the helm, while running. My research todate tells me this will not work on two transducers because of the sonar overlap. I know I can run a switch box and turn one off while the other is on but I would like to leave both on at the same time. This allows the person in the back of the boat to monitor depth and fish/structure as well. I have called Eagle and they say "no way Jose". There are new units out there that are NMEA complaint that will work but not looking to spend $1000's to solve this problem.


Has anybody tried to wire two units into one transducer cable?

I have been reading the iboat boards for the last few months and have found them quite helpful. Thanks in advance.

Mark

 

[Silvertip]

Re: Two fishfinders on one or two transducers, questions?

I have two locators with two transducers (one on the troller) and another at the helm. They do not interfere with each other but they are different brands (Eagle and PinPoint). If both of your locators are the same brand, chances are the transducers operate on the same frequency and may interfere with each other. Since you already have them -- try it. It won't hurt anything and they may work just fine. If you can find a couple of PinPoint System 7 units they can be networked. In fact you can view either the bow or aft transducer from either locator. Just as an aside, I ran two Eagles on my last boat and had no problems.

 

[Barnacle_Bill]

Re: Two fishfinders on one or two transducers, questions?

I run two of them like Silvertip and they are the same freq and I don't have any problems. But then I don't fish in deep waters either.

 

[Boatist]

Re: Two fishfinders on one or two transducers, questions?

Friends 19 foot bass boat with two Lowrance units also works in shallow water. One transducer on the trolling motor and faceing a little forward and the helm transducer is in the stern and shooting thru the hull. This works good until fish over 30 feet deep in the water then they interfear.

Also if turn the sensitivy up high so can see the second echo, (a way to see channel and dropps off better) then will interfeer at about 15 feet.

Other options is to get a 50Khz unit for one of the areas.

Also could go to a 8 degree transducer instead of a 20 degree and would work deeper. This will also let you see more fish in bottoms with big drops off or real uneven bottoms.

Probably best just to turn the helm station off when running the trolling motor. He is going to control boat position anyway.

 

[flagator1]

Re: Two fishfinders on one or two transducers, questions?

Thanks to all that responded to my questions. I will follow up on some of the suggestions and hope it solves the problem.

Mark