Thread: Quadra beam question

bear, maybe not this spring but come summer you would love having an si unit. when you say quadra band what exactly are you speaking of...i will show my ignorance here and say i have not heard of that exactly.

I like mine. It is on a low end sonar (Humminbird 718). I did need to turn up the 455khz sensitivity almost to the max to get it to read any detail off the sides, but the extra few feet I gained off the sides help me to find structure easier.

From the pics I've seen on here it's noooooowhere near a SI unit.

Bear, my 788 has that capability but I haven't even installed it yet. I think I would have to buy a different ducer for it.

Bear, the quad transducer has 4 seperate beams for a very wide scanning capability. Can't remember the specs, but it's somewhere around 75 degrees I think. There's 4 seperate beams that are being read a narrow staight down, a wide straight down and they 2 mediums angled at about 45 degrees. The theory is that the wider beam will help you spot things on a wider scan and it has the cabability to let you know which beam is picking up the return if you turn the fish symbols on. That's the theory anyway. In practice, you're gonna turn that fish symbol off an you'll be stuck with trying to figure out which direction to turn to get closer to the cover. In shallow water, I think it's advantageous, but once you get out to 15, I think it's a hinderance. You're just scanning too wide an area to be able to easily locate the stump or what ever and stay right on top of it. It shines in say 5' or less though.

In deeper water, it's better suited for searching for schools of bait than a narrow beam.

It is not a poor man's SI though. The return representation is completely different and in fact resembles traditional 2D more than anything else. If you can learn to use it and interpret what it's showing you, there are advantages, but we're talking a lot of learning by trial an error though.

Wannabe...