ForwardScan Sonar

[joker460]

Just wanted to test the waters now that there are 2 major players.
Has anyone here installed either the Garmin panoptix forward scan sonar or the B&G/Simrad unit? If they have, I'd really like to hear a review on them. The reviews I've found on the web are from the manufactures.
The Garmin transducer (PS51-TH) for sailboats is a whopping $1500.00 plus the 741sx Chart plotter at $1000.00.
The B&G/Simrad transducer is $700 plus the 7" chartplotter at $800.00, a bit more reasonable.

 

[Bill Roosa]

Have a Probe (circa 1998) forward looking sonar. Love the unit but it does take some learning to get the hang of looking through a straw underwater to determine the best (aka deepest) entry to the river. Going around curves in rivers/streams or into coves requires you to "paint" the sonar over the face of the entry bar to find the low spot. Once in you have to 1) slow down and 2) continue to paint the sonar port and starboard to get a good picture of the river bottom. Not for the faint hearted. Course gunkholing isn't either.

 

[joker460]

Bill
I didn't realize that they had that back in the 90's. Can you remember the cost at that time? What does the transducer look like?
I assume it's a thru hull. I'm seriously looking at replacing my existing sonar with a forward scan. I tend to try going up rivers to explore and have grounded once in sand but managed to get out under my own power. There are some tricky marinas around here that have sand bars and not well marked.
http://halling.com/Interphase/Probe.htm I assume it's this one.

 

[VanIslandGuy]

At the Vancouver Boat show I was told that Raymarine will eventually introduce a "forward scan" type sonar/thru hull, that will be work with current and past generation plotters. We are putting on a new raymarine ES series plotter and radar simply because it is less work to get them to get info from our old RM ST60 instruments and autopilot. The Navionics Platinum charts are excellent as well. I've heard mixed reviews on forward sonar from some locals that have used it that vary from excellent to a waste of money. I think its a great idea though.