Where do you guys set the range on your side imaging screen?
Why?

Mine stays around 100. Sometimes I’ll run one on 60. Sometimes I’ll run left on one screen, right on the other screen. Depends on if I’m looking for new “stuff”, or scanning waypoints for fish.

Depends on depth of water. Normally I'm searching in 15 to 45 FOW with range at 100'-125' and freq. setting at 455 kHz.

Has anyone noticed that newer structure scan never works as good as the old original boxes?

My old lss1 worked pretty dang good, I can’t say that my newer 3-1 is much better. The DI was definitely better on the lss1.

where, 3X the depth. why, it gives accurate proportions of the return image.

I absolutely notice it. My boat came with HDS gen 1 8” screens and the structure scan box with side and down scan. It was LIGHTYEARS BETTER than my HDS 12s with Active Imaging HD.

Sadly. I gave the box and transducer away to the guy that bought my old graphs.

I like to keep mine personally on auto. It covers the appropriate range no matter the depth you are fishing and maximizing clarity all in one.

I keep mine on 80' most of the time.

So, if Lowrance's newer technology is anything like Humminbird's you have to be very aware of your settings when scanning with the new stuff.....I have Bird Mega SI, it's awesome when you need more detail in a specific spot/area. But much over 70-80' out and it's not as good as the old 455 setting, which you can switch to. Maybe Lowrance is similar?

I typically have my SI out 3X the depth with a minimum of 50' and max of 80' on MEGA. If I want to scan more area faster to get general layout of an area I turn it down to 455 and you can go out to about 120' before it starts blacking out....if you keep it on MEGA and try to scan that far out it'll give you too much detail of things that aren't really siginificant

80 to 100

20+ year old technology



My 1 month old Lowrance 12’s with AI HD are so poor, these 20 yr old graphs and LSS box look like military grade. Haha

You have something wrong with yours.

I have two. One on the transom, one on the trolling motor on a ducer shield. They both suck balls equally compared to the old LSS1 I had the Carbons before the Lives were just as [censored]. They have AI 3-1’s

I’m getting 13.8 volts to the new units, nothing in the way of either transducer. The old stuff is just better.

Minnerbuckets 12 shows the same blurry [censored] mine show all day.

I think these were from a lss2. Been way too long, definitely never got this crisp of an image from my current active image 3-1.

I have several new 8’s, 10’s, and 12’s put back just for that reason. The 10’s are the ones that really pop, I think the pixel count was the same on the 10’s and 12’s

Steez I've got 2 HDS 8s with structure scan box and transducers. Ready to swap for those crappy Lives.

Is that San Pedro area.

No sir, the first pic is the bridge remnants between Calliham park and Hog island, I can’t recall the water level when I took that. Next time out, I’m going to see what depth they currently are at.


Second pic is at Canyon lake, south side-mid main lake, i believe it’s the arm that goes back to Tom’s creek. I thought it was such a cool pic and a reminder of what the area used to be before getting impounded.

Funny. They work REALLY well for AT2, which was the reason I went bigger. The new 12 Lives aren’t the problem. I just think the Active Imaging transducers are inferior

For those that are having good luck with structure scans on the newer units what settings do you like?

I like 60ft for finding fish and close structure but if looking something big maybe 100 ft.

I don’t think it’s as much about the settings as it is proper transducer placement and having it perfectly level.

Mine has a very clear line of sight, but I think I have it level to the boat…maybe not level to the water as the boat sits a little nose up in the water. Hmmmm

The one on the trolling motor is flat as it’s gonna be. Same results.

The easy way to tell if the transducer is parallel to the bottom when scanning is drive past a pole/boat dock/bridge piling. The object and its shadow should be horizontally displayed. This setup has the transducer parallel to the hull bottom so bridge piling and its shadow are not horizontal.



This one has the transducer tilted to much the opposite way:

What MFD and transducer provided those screen shots? I have HDS Live Pro 12’s with AI-HD and get NOTHING close to that….my original HDS 8’s with LSS were better. What am I doing wrong?

The top screen shot was a Helix 15 CHIRP MEGA SI GPS G4N and the bottom screen shot was a SOLIX 12 MEGA SI GPS G3. Both have a MEGA SI+ transducer, just different connection types.

Some of these images are way sharper than I can get with my Garmin, are bird and Lowrance superior side scans or do I need to tweak my settings?

Looks like Bird may have the better SI. Lowrance blows….

GT56 is the schizzz, my bald California buddy would post videos if he wasn’t a puzzzz.

I saw with my own eyes on the water a Garmin with a gt 36 dialed in and it was as good of SI as I’ve ever seen. My understanding with Garmin is if you want a 2d through hull, then you have to have a gt 36 with a y cable to a gt 8. With BP having 12” 126s on sale for $1500, I might pick up 3 or so and go that route. As far as Lowrance, they are just easy to use, but too damn expensive for the new Pro model!

If you have their club card, you can get those suckers for an additional 10% off, pays the sales tax portion anyway.

Sorry, your bald California buddy doesn’t have a current clip of the newer 36 but here’s one of the 34. The newer 36 has a little bit better of a picture than the 34. The bigger advantage of the 36 is the more power and way better range than the 34.
To the op. I start 3x the depth for the range and expand out from there.

Blasphemy! I thought you were up with the times. I also thought you were running the 56. Oh well, gives the guy something to compare to.

Nah, I’m running an Airmar TM165HW (Baller).

That’s pathetic. I’d be pissed

Just kidding. Looks outstanding!!

I still suck at fishing, even with all the great electronics that are out there now.

Pretty much a given, MSI+ has much better imaging than Lowrance's offerings. I have not seen the new HD ducers, but reports are that they are not that much different than the previous AI series, which are definitly not as nice as MSI+. I currently have SS3D, which despite being older is considered one of if not the best for SS/DS from Lowrance and it's not as nice as MSI+ .