another fishfinder question

Hi All,
I am in the market for a fishfinder.  I would like to ask what the pros and cons are to a permanently mounted transducer and a suction cup transducer.  Also, it appears that fishfinders with GPS capabilities are quite expensive.  Do you know of any good fishfinder/gps that are not super expensive?

Thank, Sean

Sean - if you scroll down on the "newbie help" page, you'll see 3 topics that might help you out.

Look for the titles: (as you scroll down)

Fish finder help
Fish finder suggestions
transducer mounting

Oops ... did not see the "transducer" post originally.  My visual scan of the posts was for "fishfinder", not for "transducer".

But this raises another question: I was not aware that you can install a transducer internally.  Does it beam through the plastic?  Does that work well.  Obviously, I know very little about fishfinders.

Thanks, Sean

yeah most of our transdusers are mounted internaly ant it works great.

I have mine mounted externally (I hang it with a rod from my rhynobar) and find that I get MUCH better sensitivity than when it was mounted shoot through hull.

MolBasser

Through hull is definitely the way to go.  Attatching it outside causes drag that may cause the boat to track wrong and will require more effort with the paddle.

If you don't already own a handheld gps, i'd suggest getting a separate GPS from your FF.  You'll use it alot in the car, camping, on vacation ect.  Mark your hotel in maui before driving around so you can always get back and whatnot...  Also, gps sellers really bend you over a barrel as far as what they charge for maps.  You'd probably have to dish out another 1k to get good underwater topo and navigation charts downloaded into a FF/GPS.