Quote Originally Posted by Cane Pole
What u saying here is that the "lower end" sonars ($1000.00 or less) is a receiver only adjustment. Just what I thought. So, how can anyone think they can extend the cone angle by adjusting the sensitivity? Can't happen as far as I can see. I would assume then that some of the manuf. over exagurate the capabilities of their lower end products...ha
Tom
Sensitivity adjust changes the receiver gain.
Cone angle is a transmit measurement, inherent in the transducer, and changing the receiver gain does not change it.
However, if you increase the sensitivity enough to pick up an object that was previously invisible, because it was at the outer edge of the cone, you could say that the visible cone angle was increased. At the same time though, you may flood the received signal with noise from the center of the cone. So it is NOT CORRECT to say increasing the sensitivity increases the cone angle.
As was stated, some sonars have adjustable cone angles by switching between different transducer crystals, and some more elaborate sonars may have adjustable transmit power.