Livescope cone again

[brettw]

Here's my question:
At the livescope transducer, does the cone angle it projects start at 1 degree and expand to 20 or does it start at 20 degrees .
Thanks

[tobyfrommo]

The Live Scope cone shape is not like traditional sonar...LWinchester2, and a few others, have discussed this here before. Here is how I understand it. Traditional sonar is a "true" cone...starting from 0 at the transducer the cone angle/coverage area continues to grow the deeper/further away. Where as the Live Scope cone is more of an elliptical or tear drop shape. It starts from 0 at the transducer, quickly widens to a 10-20 degree width at the 10', 20', 30' or 40' distance but then begins to taper back in the further away from the boat you go. I never read where anyone has specifically identified these forward distances.

In my experience I find this to be, generally, true. If you set your forward range to 60'-80'...just as fish/object comes onto the screen the boat, trolling motor, transducer position has to be nearly motionless to keep that object on the screen. Where as, when that same fish/object is in the 10' - 30' range you can swing the transducer a fare amount left/right and keep the object on the screen. Another experience that validates this is...I often spider rig (8) poles for crappie...rods "fanned" out across front of boat. My 14' poles hang at the 10' mark. At this distance I can see weights, minnows or jigs on two rods at same time. However, if I'm casting, it get difficult to find jig on the screen when making 50'-60' casts. This can be done but it takes time/practice to know exactly where the Live Scope beam is...given your setup.

If you google "Live Scope Beam Angle Shape" you get several links to discussions on this board and the Crappie.com board.

[TOUCH OF CLASS]

Drop your lure on side you will see how wide it stats

[Fishysam]

I'm pretty sure it's 20* from the start to the end.

the elliptical description is accurate through, reason being the center of the cone will have a higher % of return to the transducer making a small lure on the side not visible (or fish, but a hard rock you can see below the displayed bottom for a long way to the side at a good distance)

[D Johnson]

I also spider rig but with 16 to 20 foot pools. My ducer is in a stick with a handle and by just tweaking a very little bit I can see my 8# braid going to my weight. I can see the weight most any where in the cone and if pointing right at it the 1/32 oz jig and tube. Really aiming it perfectly then I also see the line. You or at least I cant aim that well with the ducer on the TM. HB SC told me the come was viewing 1/3 the distance so at 9' it covers 3' and 60 you ate looking at 20'. This is petty easy it is when they tell me my 2D is 1/7 the distance the math get the be a pita. I normally push jigs in 7 to 18 feet of water so I don't run 2d as looking at 1 to 2 feet of bottom seams a waste to me. My fishing pardner on the bow has a 10" display that he uses to navigate as we troll and he splits the screen and uses 2D. I keep telling him he is wasting screen space.

[brettw]

Thanks for the discussion.
I think for fishing directly over brush, the dow
view may easily be best.

[LWINCHESTER2]

Part 1. There is a problem with trying to define LiveScope in terms of a transducer cone angle. A single element 2d transducer does have a cone. Two wires are all that are required for its operation. One of the multibeam phased array patents describes embodiments including 60 receive transducers. We think of the transducer as one item. In this case, this is a transducer housing having within it a large number of elements. I think the patent I mentioned was in reference to the PS30 and PS31. The LiveScope has three arrays of elements with each array aimed differently that you can see just by looking at the LVS32. The LiveScope cable has 21 pins. I don't know how many elements it has but it takes 21 wires to manage it.

Part 2. IMO it is better to think of Panoptix and LiveScope in terms of coverage. Each element has a technical spec that could be described as a particular cone. But the multibeam phasing means that that multiple elements are fired at almost the same time to create a new cone, perhaps pointed in a different direction than the elements are actually pointed and with different technical specs than the separate elements involved. Remember that the PS30 has adjustable beam width and beam steering accomplished within the software by the timing of the firings and selection of elements to be fired. The LiveScope coverage is referred to as 135x20. That's a good rule of thumb. However, the coverage from the transducer out to different distances bears little resemblance to 2d cones and 2d cone charts showing cone widths at different distances are useless for Panoptix and LiveScope.

Part 3. You may want to think of it like a 2d single element cone. It's not , but go ahead. You should be aware that this is a much more advanced and complicated system. Get on Google. Search about multi-beam phased array sonar. Read for a couple of months and come back and tell us what you found. I have and can't say that I have a good grasp of what it is. I do think I know what it's not.

[LWINCHESTER2]

Today I tried an experiment in regards to the width of the cone of LVS32. I suspended 1/8 oz jigs under floating jugs. Under jug#1 at 2,8 and 14 ft. Under jug#2 at 4, 10 and 16 ft. Under jug#3 at 6, 12 and 18 ft. They were arranged this way so that I could determine which lures were being viewed. The jugs were maintained in a straight line 6ft apart using a long rod. So the total width between the lures outside to outside was 12 ft. The pickup range on screen ran from 50-60 ft. Then I used the TM to move closer to the apparatus. The settings were Range 80, Gain Auto Medium, Noise Rejection Medium, TVG low. I was using v2.33 on an 8616xsv and only using LiveScope Forward. There was some drifting. The depth of water ran from 40 to 20 depending on the drift. The only time I could see all three sets of lures was if I was not perpendicular to the apparatus. Here are my take-aways.
1. Like Jimmy Buffets song, it's 5 o'clock somewhere, the 20 degree cone is 20 degrees somewhere at some distance from the boat. Where, I don't know.
2. The cone is tight, both close and at long distances. Usually I could see two sets of lures except at closer ranges.
3. The cone at close distances 10-15 ft and less is very different than when Livescope was introduced. I distinctly remember at these close ranges that it was difficult to determine direction of both lures and fish as both would show with quiet a bit of trolling motor rotation. Now that is not the case. It is difficult, to pinpoint lures inside of 10 ft. If I had the xd on a stick, I might could move it slow enough to pinpoint them. Instead I just get a glimpse of them with my best efforts.

Side notes: I did try some other settings but didn't like the extra noise and ghost trees so I stuck with the settings that have worked in the past. I did not observe a dead zone, but could have called that 0-10 ft a dead zone because of the extreme delicate pointing required.

[Jbass2]

@lwinchester

I hesitate to say anything, because I a very new user (as in less than four weeks). But I became very determined to develop an understanding after 3 frustrating weeks with poor images. This last week, I spent about 20 hours over the course of 3 different trips casting very little and focusing on livescope.

1. I agree on the tight cone. I was able to see my micro jig 35 feet in front of the boat (12 foot depth) bouncing on the bottom. It was not easy. There was no wind, and no drift. If there had been, then there is no way I could have stayed on the jig. Any movement left or right on the trolling motor and the jig disappeared. My xd is mounted on my TM shaft, so its hard for me to track a bait if the wind is blowing at all.

2. I used the same settings you used except for TVG. I had mine set to off, and i could generally see my baits in the 0-10 foot zone in front of my boat. When I set TVG to low, I lost a lot of detail in the 0-10 foot range, and I could not see my bait there either.

Just my little bit of experience

[LWINCHESTER2]

jbass2. All very much on target. And yes. TVG can hide targets.

[aero320]

I also spider rig but with 16 to 20 foot pools. My ducer is in a stick with a handle and by just tweaking a very little bit I can see my 8# braid going to my weight. I can see the weight most any where in the cone and if pointing right at it the 1/32 oz jig and tube. Really aiming it perfectly then I also see the line. You or at least I cant aim that well with the ducer on the TM. HB SC told me the come was viewing 1/3 the distance so at 9' it covers 3' and 60 you ate looking at 20'. This is petty easy it is when they tell me my 2D is 1/7 the distance the math get the be a pita. I normally push jigs in 7 to 18 feet of water so I don't run 2d as looking at 1 to 2 feet of bottom seams a waste to me. My fishing pardner on the bow has a 10" display that he uses to navigate as we troll and he splits the screen and uses 2D. I keep telling him he is wasting screen space.

Don, this is a little off topic, but you mentioned using 8 pound braid. Do you use a clear leader with crappie?