Running 2 different brand depth finders in same boat?

[blue21]

Has anyone had any issues running 2 different brand depth finders on the same boat? I plan on mounting both transducers on the back of the boat on opposite sides. Has anyone tried this or have any reccomendations to follow?

[Drail1313]

I could not run my Vex and Humminbird at the same time. The Vex would mess the Bird up. (Older Bird.)

[John Mickish]

Putting both transducers on the transom is going to be trouble if both units are opperating at the same frequency. You will get interference in anything over a couple feet of water. It has nothing to do with different brands, it's all about the frequency.

On my 20' boat, if I am running the bow unit (goes thru the trolling motor) and the console unit (transducer on transom) I get interference when deeper than about 20'.

You can change your ping speeds and that may help, but if you really need to run two sonars and don't want to put the boat length between them, you are better off with sonar units that can be linked together and share one transducer.

[h8go4s]

Garmin, Lowrance and Humminbird all use 200 kHz transducers for standard sonar. So using two transducers on the same boat, no matter what brand, can cause interference. It will look like rain on the screen, so it's easy to tell what it is.

The sonar beam is a cone that gets larger in diameter as it gets farther from the transducer (deeper water). So the distance between transducers makes a difference. You won't get interference until you get deep enough for the two cones to overlap.

All the units I've owned have had an adjustment to filter out the interference. If you crank the filtering up and down while running across the same structure a few times you can get an idea of what it's filtering out and if you're losing some detail of the bottom.

I run a Garmin 250 and a HB 898csi off the transom, sometimes with both on standard sonar at the same time. The interference is a little annoying, but not a deal breaker. Usually I run the HB on split screen with the map and side imaging views; sometimes full screen side imaging; sometimes standard sonar in zoom mode. Works for me.

Reading this might help:

http://www.biggeorgiaspots.com/boats-and-electronics/aaargh-sonar-noise.html

[blue21]

Thanks for all of the input guys, I appreciate it!