A day in the Fitzroy

[Douglas]

If anybody is thinking of trying out the new MEGA imaging sounders be aware that they seem to have had their CHIRP capability "throttled back" significantly.

There is an increase in target resolution (size of the targets one can see) but that's due simply to the higher frequencies in use and NOT range resolution (ability to separate targets within range) which is what CHIRP provides.

Garmin and Humminbird are the 2 that have MEGA in their marketing sights. Garmin have a GCV20 black box conversion for MEGA but the specs they quote don't support the hype they make. Garmin engineers in the US are having another look at things.

I have one of these Humminbird mega units (a CHIRP 10" Helix mega SI g2n) and its certainly better than the earlier versions without 1200 kHz but what an opportunity missed by the manufacturers. But maybe "proper/real CHIRP" will be introduced on the next modified version (Gen 3 or 4 or something) so the marketing parade marches on.

In the case of Humminbird, they simply quote a spec "across the board" (on ALL of their MEGA units) that is actually quite poor. Most potential buyers wouldn't know what they're looking at anyway.