TZT2, DFF3 & SS175

[leonidas]

Hi,

I have recently upgraded my electronics from VX2 to dual station TZT2 screens running twin SS264N 200 & SS264W 50 transducers.
Very happy with the new units but wanted some advice on transducer upgrade.
Primary form of fishing is Marlin/Tuna in water depths of 100-400 meters, I also occasional fish for swords in depths of 400-600.
I find at the moment I am only using my SS264W 50 transducer to mark Marlin as it has a wider cone.

I was wanting your advice on the merits on replacing the transducers that I have with the SS175HW & SS175L.
Will the SS175L give me enough depth for my deep water fishing (400-600 meters)?
I am also looking at maybe adding a 2kw transducer for the sword and deep water fishing along with a DFF3 as I don't have room to add an 1150.

Are they my best options for transducers for the shallow fishing (100-400 meters)?
Are they much better than what I already have? And what difference will the DFF3 make to the performance of the 1kw transducers?

What would you recommend for a 2KW transducer for my deep water fishing, I would need this to be flush mounted/glassed into the hull as I cant have a fairing on my boat.

Looking forward to your suggestions.

Keep smiling

Leon

 

[C-Bass]

Good morning Leonidas,

Thank you for your inquiry. The SS175L and SS175HW are chirp transducers and designed to work with the DFF1-UHD. Those transducers would not be a good fit to use with the internal 1kw sounder built inside the TZT2 units, you would also have to use a MB1100 in order to make them operational. We have tested those transducers over a broad range of frequencies and found the best performance of those transducers are lower frequencies than what the TZT2 pings at which is 50kHz and 200kHz. During our testing we got the best returns around 42kHz for the low and around 130-135kHz for the high.

Wide beam transducers work very nice in shallower water to find fish targets. However because the beam angle is so wide the energy is more dispersed. We found when looking for fish targets below 300ft this transducer does not work as well as a traditional beam angle transducer on High frequency.

The DFF3 when working with a 1kw transducers will not improve your fish targets significantly. If you were to take the same 1kw transducers and test both the DFF3 and the internal TZT2 fish finder you would not see a significant improvement on performance. However the DFF3 has a free synthesizing transceiver which allows it to use frequencies outside the traditional frequencies of 50kHz and 200kHz. Frequency selection will play a large role in the fish finders ability to show targets deeper in the water column. To go deep we recommend higher output power transducers and lower frequencies.

If you were going to add a DFF3 we have a number of transducers that fit your needs. These would be single frequency transducers with a higher output power say around 2kw or 3kw. We also have the ability to use lower frequency transducers with the DFF3 because of the Free Synthesizing Transceiver. You may want to look at going with a 28kHz 2kw transducer like the CA28BL-6HR which offers a wide beam of 22x32 degree beam angle. Because of the frequency it would allow you to go deep. The other option would be to go with an airmar chirp transducer PM111LHW. Although this transducer is designed to work with a chirp sounder it can be used with a sounder like the DFF3. With this transducer you could slew the frequency of the DFF3 on the low side down to 38 khz which would give you a beam angle of 10x19 degrees at that frequency. The high side uses a wide beam angle at 200kHz it is 30 degrees which might help to stretch targets out in shallow water operation down to 300ft.

c-bass

 

[leonidas]

Hi C-Bass,
Thank you for the reply.
I understand the SS175 are chirp transducers, a lot of guys I know are running them with 295 sounders and getting great results.
I guess what I am wanting to verify is that the SS175 are a better transducer than the SS264.
If I go down the track of needing a DFF3, will I also be able to add the SS175 transducers and get the best performance out of them or will it still need the addition of MB1100.

The PM111LHW sounds like a good fit, I assume if I had one of those installed I would not need the SS264 or SS175 pair?

Thank you for your advice and help.

Keep smiling

Leon