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NEWS
Raymarine's New CP450c ClearPulse CHIRP Sonar
New sonar with revolutionary multi-frequency technology offers incredible fish detection, clarity and depth performance.Raymarine’s Phoenix-like return to the cutting edge of marine electronics continues apace with the launch of the latest CP450C sonar with exciting CHIRP technology. What’s that, you ask? It’s short for compressed high-intensity radar pulse and it's been in military use for some time. The upside: target discrimination like you’ve never seen before. No fish is safe. Read on.
A component of the all-new Raymarine “c” and “e” series multifunction displays, which you can read hereabouts after we attended their launch this week, the CP450C with ClearPulse CHIRP technology offers up to 10 times the resolution of traditional single-frequency pulse sonars, claims Raymarine.
The CHIRP technology has now become available to the recreational boater thanks to the advent of fast and affordable digital signal processing and the complementary efforts of transducer maker Airmar.
Basically, CHIRP operates on a wide range of sonar frequencies simultaneously. The best the old sets of yore could do was operate as dual frequency units, showing a 28 or 50 kHz image and a 200kHz image on a split screen. But the CHIRP technology uses a wide band of frequencies simultaneously, from 25 to 250 kHz, to provide greater information and detail.
Typically, and depending entirely on the water depth, the CHIRP sonar might fire signals in bands like 28-60 kHz or 130-210kHz and so on. This broad band of frequencies gives rise to the term broadband sonar.
The ultra-fast 80 ping-per-second update rate means the images you are seeing on the screen are virtually in real-time. With the button-controlled “c” and Hybrid touch screen “e” series LED displays, which can be viewed while wearing polarised sunglasses, the images we saw were nothing short of dazzling. You’d almost be happy just depth sounding the day away and not even wetting a line.
But where the CP450C gets really interesting is when you engage TruZoom and split the screen for greater target definition. You can see the result in the images alongside, which we took while cruising on Pittwater. The zoomed view shows brilliant target separation and fish shows appearing as perfect arches. The CHIRP technology reduces clutter and unwanted ‘noise,’ is said to work brilliantly when travelling at speed, and where there are soft seabeds that otherwise absorb sound waves.
We were shown some recent images or screen grabs from depth sounding field work in Sydney. There was a school of bait at Flint and Steel. near the mouth of the Hawkesbury River, that had such terrific target separation the fish were each stacked up almost looked like branches on a pine tree. The Wreck of the Valiant looked just like, well, a wreck dotted with fish, while the schools of kingfish off Long Reef begged catching.
In coming months, Raymarine Asia is working with some tech heads from the UK HQ to test the deep-water bottom sounding capability of the new CP450C Sonar with ClearPulse CHIRP technology. The unit is said to be designed to operate in waters from less than one metre to more than 3000 metres deep.
In our view, this really is game-changing technology. Except for the budget end of the market, CHIRP is set to revolutionise the way we go depth sounding and fish finding.
More from Raymarine Asia, Suite 301, 2 Marina Close, Belrose, NSW, 2085. Phone (02) 9479 4800. See www.raymarine.com.au.
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Written byBoatsales Staff
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