The popular Airmar B175HW Transducer came out just a couple of years ago and has proven to be a beast for offshore fishing. In fact, it is the most popular transducers we have ever offered. Here is some background on it. Traditionally fishermen would use a 1kW 50/200 dual frequency transducer for offshore fishing. We are primarily discussing trolling, drifting and chunking. The 200khz portion of the 1kW transducer was most useful for scanning the upper area of the water column, while 50kHz was more useful for holding bottom in 1000' or more. At some point several years ago CHIRP was introduced, and so was a 1kW CHIRP transducer with High and Low channels vs 200 and 50 KHz frequencies of old. The problem with 200kHz and High CHIRP on one of these 1kW transducers was the cone angle was so narrow. Fishermen were missing most of what they were going over. Fish could be just feet to the side of the boat and they would never know about it.
Then the B175 High Wide was introduced, as well as a host of other 1kW "Wide" angle transducers like the R109, B275, and TM275. What makes these transducers so great for offshore trolling? Quite simply, it is because they utilize CHIRP technology, are the high frequency for the absolute best image quality, and they have a very wide cone angle to view as much of the water column under the boat as possible. With a wide cone angleup to 25 degrees, fishermen can now cover 4 times as much ground as they could before without sacrificing short range image quality.
The B175 style transducer is perfect for any boats that will sit on a trailer or lift any fast center console or walkaround style boats, and for all powerboats up to 35'. After 35' you should consider a transducer with a fairing block like the B275LHW. BOE Marine sells the B175HW, and all B175's in what Airmar calls a Mix-N-Match (MNM) format. With an MNM transducer, you can literally adapt it to any popular sonar system. The transducer is hard wired with a cable that is approximately 28' long, then there is an adapter plug on the end to convert it for use on most sonar systems. Makes for easy upgrades in the future. When you find the B175 you want, if it is an MNM version, just choose your free cable at checkout.
We have a great video on how to install the B175HW here, as well as any flush mounted style transducer.