Humminbird 987c SI side-imaging sonar...anybody got one?

The unit on ebay is new, in the unopened box with a warranty.
 

If anyone here wants to build a better dan SS i have 25 or so 200khz airmar transducers to play with.dont ask me where i got them,let just say i have a source,i may be able to get some more.they all work they came from a small handheld fishfinder if you msg me or call me,some of you have my number,ill tell you who made the fishfinder,maybe you have one,it wont do you much good theres no res to it,it just shows fish icons that move.if anyone here is good with electronics like maybe building a interface board to whatever fishfinder you are useing that would be great.i have 2 Furuno fmv-601's plus a ray jefferson video fishfinder thats color with some decent res.i also have a pile of aluminium tubes 3 inches in diameter about 2 feet long that would be great for the fish tubes.
this website has some good info on how the transducers should be placed to get the highest res.check out page 2
http://www.beugungsbild.de/sidescan/sidescan.html
i found this site that has the hummingbird 987c for less then 2k with or without the ducer.cheaper then ebay .
http://www.scubasteve.biz/store/manufacturers/humminbird/combo.htm
 

The Burton Unit is pretty cool. You can save everything to an SD card and go back home and play everything back. That is the benefit of the Burton. I really wish the Humminbird unit did that as well. The only downside to the Burton unit is that it looks only to one side. Other than that, I would buy it. I have been told he is coming up with a dual version and possibly a laptop interface.

Until then, I will stick to Humminbird!

Robert in SC
 

Does anyone know if the 987c has a external gps ant. or the ability to set in the offset from gps ant. to transducer or even just the ant offset? This would solve the layback to towfish problem. I dug up a old copy of software for" layback of towfish"routine and it would require another pc to figure towfish layback position in real time it also is configured for GEometrics mag and Marine Sonics sidescan. The ability to input an offset be it gps ant. or transducer would be the wat to go. This little SS has a lot of bang for the buck!

Regards

Scott
 

It does have a chart offset but not position offset. This would not solve the problem because it would not offset the reading based on direction. In other words, it may work if you are towing a fish and heading in an easterly direction, but when you turn around and head west, the position would now be offset in front of you. Does that make sense?

Your position has to be fixed not only on the layback of the fish, but also on the heading.

Robert in SC
 

yep, makes sense

Most survey type software has a "sensor offset" this would allow for gps antenna offset or transducer offset to gps unit. ie position is calculated with offset and heading. I was just curious if Humminbird unit had this capability. This looks like a decent alternative for a home brew survey system. " Nav,sonar with postion output in one small ,cheap package" This would allow for logging of towfish position etc. Thanks for the Info!

regards
Scott
 

Why would you need a towfish?
Click to expand...

Hey Salvor6, I was going to build a tow fish to reduce the distortion caused by wave action...the transducer is hull mounted out of the box. I'm betting you could get even MORE resolution, depth and clarity out of it by giving it some seperation from the engine noise, and loosing the pitching of the hull. That's why I need a towfish...well, OK, so I don't NEED a towfish...but I want one :) I've got a towfish started already anyways, and lengthening the 987C cable shouldn't be a big problem.

Remember that I'm the guy who has an entire winter to wait through before he can get out to Florida :( I gotta have something to do with my time :D I plan to tow the thing around the lakes in my area all winter and maybe dive on anything interesting I find. I know there is a cessna, a good sized old boat that use to belong to the Fire Dept. and some cars down there. No telling what else I'll find, practice is practice!

Jason
 

Ok I'm officially pissed! I lost the auction for this model....a brand new one that went for $1589. Shortly after the auction, I received an eBay message saying that the seller was offering me the "Second Chance" to purchase the item at my last bid price. The Email I received was all in the usual eBay HTML and the same message actually showed up in "My Ebay" Inbox.

At the last moment before continuing on with doing the "Second Chance" purchase, I noticed that there were some grammatical errors on the page. It turns out that I was completely "spoofed". By opening the first email, my computer was from then on being redirected to a illicit website that cloned Ebay down to the last detail. After all is said and done, the website was shutdown by their ISP and I never lost a dime.

Buyer Beware!!!

Pcola
 

pcolaboy,
i sure hope you didnt put in your ebay username an pw a that spoofed ebay site,if you did they own your account,even though it was shut down im sure they got all the info they needed to hijack your account or anyone elses that got that second chance offer since there were so many bids.any time i get anything from ebay i view the headers in email,the spoofers are getting really good and stealing alot of ebay accounts,plus paypal accounts cause most people use the same password so the spoofers get a bonus.you have to be really carefull on the net these days with ident theft an the spoofing.they can even get you just by viewing a .jpg,code can be inbedded in pics now,that could be a trojan or virus to gain access to your machine to do spam an other illegal things on the net.never use internet explorer,hackers hack it every day,microsoft cant even keep up with all the back doors hackers find,use the mozilla firefox broser an thier thunderbird email program to be on the safe side.i check the security sites on the net every week to see what new hack is out there.its helpful in combatting the spoofers and hackers.one other note,most of ebay employees are kids,they have access to all your info and emails,ever notice that after signing up with ebay,you now get tons of spam?no private info is secure with them.
 

ScubaSeeker said:
Why would you need a towfish?
Click to expand...

Hey Salvor6, I was going to build a tow fish to reduce the distortion caused by wave action...the transducer is hull mounted out of the box. I'm betting you could get even MORE resolution, depth and clarity out of it by giving it some seperation from the engine noise, and loosing the pitching of the hull. That's why I need a towfish...well, OK, so I don't NEED a towfish...but I want one :) I've got a towfish started already anyways, and lengthening the 987C cable shouldn't be a big problem.

Remember that I'm the guy who has an entire winter to wait through before he can get out to Florida :( I gotta have something to do with my time :D I plan to tow the thing around the lakes in my area all winter and maybe dive on anything interesting I find. I know there is a cessna, a good sized old boat that use to belong to the Fire Dept. and some cars down there. No telling what else I'll find, practice is practice!

Jason
Click to expand...
hey jason,
il have to see what you have in mind, we have some old towfish housings if i can find them, and some serious surplus electronics, and maybe a jw fisher pulse mag i might dismantle or gut for the right project.
 

Hmmm...I'll have to think as well Joseph. I'm betting the electronics you speak of are far superior to what Hummingbird is using, I just wonder if they could be soldered in in place of the existing stuff, or if it would require a lot of modification to the electronics to handle it. Really for my purposes the 987C SI will do everything I need with only a few simple modifications. A real towfish shell would be nice since I wouldn't have to do all the calculations to get it to fly right. My current version is just 2" PVC that I had fin slots CNC cut into at work. We had some extra Sheet PVC, so I snagged some of the corners to cut into fins, but haven't done it yet.

Don't dismantle that PI mag yet...I've heard that there is a possibility of a Cesium vapor upgrade for it in the future from a 3rd party company. No details, just that it's possible.
 

hi jason,
would be nice to upgrade the fisher as i have always liked that design, but i would spend a little more and go gradient and add an 882 from geometrics to my tow set up, thats my christmas wish anyhow. its so hard to get clean data with all the mineralization in some locations i would like to not spend so many nights analyzing data while im in so many ports with good nightlife.
 

I love the GeoMetrics design, but I've got to add more silver and gold coins to my collection before I get one of those...besides, if all pans out, I might be helping you tow yours before long :D

I'm going to order the hummingbird a few weeks after I get back from Florida...it's amazing how quickly treasure hunting depletes a bank account. I'm glad I didn't decide to do an impulse move earlier this year. At least this way I'll have most of my equipment and a savings account before I head East. You need to make me a REALLY good deal on one of those big trawlers or shrimp boats ;)

Jason
 

funny you mention a shrimpboat,
one of the best dig boats i was ever on was the " MR WIZARD " it had a deflector plate instead of mailboxs and could move some overbuden, plenty of room for storage, fuel capacity, and was a shallow draft 60' tunnel drive, were gonna put it in the drydock this winter i think, she needs some attention. should be headed this way next season.
 

rio,
do you have any pics of the deflector plate on the shrimpboat?
 

Interesting image from my 987C. The first one is a natural image and the second one was modified by PhotoStudio in which I lowered the brightness to try and highlight any interesting areas. Look at the images on the left and you can see how the areas of interest seem to be more pronounced. I tried adjusting the contrast, hue adjustment, etc. but the most useful was the reduction in the brightness.

Sonar users might want to try this technique as a method of enhancing their images. Results could vary depending on the software package used.
 

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