Depth transducers

[Dick Pluta]

The old Standard Horizon depth sounder that came with my boat gave up the ghost a couple of years ago. The transducer seems to be a dual frequency, since there are four wires. I didn't want to pull the boat to install a new transducer, so I called Standard (which, if memory serves, is now Raymarine). Their engineer told me the transducer in nothing more than a speaker and any transducer would work, so I replaced the display with a cheap Lowrance fishfinder and hooked up two of the transducer leads and, lo and behold, it worked. Well, now the Lowrance died and I'm going to get a real depth sounder. I can get a Raymarine ST40 without transducer and would like to use the old transducer. Does anyone have any wisdom on this subject?

Dick Pluta
AEGEA

[bewitched]

It should work. Neither Raymarine or Lowrance make their own transducers. They are supplied by a company Airmar.

There is a high likelihood that the Lowrance and Raymarine transducers are actually one in the same. If not, they will almost certainly be talking NMEA0183.

Have a root around their website to see which transducer you have:

Airmar Technology Corporation » The Leader in Ultrasonic Transducers and Sensing Technology

[gettinthere]

The frequency of the transducer & the display must match.

I just replaced my square looking standard horizon display unit with a raymarine st60+ display using the airmar transducer that came with the standard horizon.

Airmar is the manufacturer of the transducer. Look them up and call them. Tech support there talked me out of buying a new airmar...told me the ray would work.

[brankin]

Go to Airmar.com who makes the transducers for all the marine electronic companies and look at the cross reference chart. I had a Standard horizon depth and did the same thing as you are doing. I bought a Raymarine st-60+ head and hooked it up to the transducer and it works. The four wires are the standard cable that comes with all airmar transducers. The black and gray are for the depth and the other two are for the temperature which few units were equipped with. PS not all transducers will work with any other equipment.