Gt30 or UHD54 ?

[Pigdog72]

I only fish water under 50 feet I mainly use side to look for cover my unit is a 8612 anyone with experience with both.

[Jonestrollingmotor]

This is how it breaks down. GT 30 is good out to 40+. GT 34 which is the UHD version of the 30 is best out to 25-30ft depth. I have had both on my boat, currently running the 34 because of my shallow river system lakes I fish in south arkansas.

[TOUCH OF CLASS]

Gt 30 is just al around better,it’s goes deeper gets out farther and has better detail imo.

[Gford]

I've played with and installed several of each....if you have the 8600 series just go with the 54 as it works good as an all in one trans.....the 34 has best down....the 30 best side....and 54 best all around IMO.

[LWINCHESTER2]

You limited the comparison to be between the GT30 or GT54. You fish up to 50 FOW. If you are in 40 FOW wouldn't you want to see well to the side out to at least 80 ft or more. That means GT30. Why not get a GT50.

[TOUCH OF CLASS]

Here’s the thing running both a 106 uhd 54 along with 1242 gt30 the uhd misses a lot of structure,first thing I noticed was cables holding no wake marker in the lake.It even missed some of the brush piles.Now my gt34 uhd does the same thing .Gt 30 picks up everything.I don’t know why the uhd does this but I figured if it’s missing this stuff it’s missing fish.Now you could just use the lower frequency on the gt54 .The gt 30 with y cable I can run a high speed sonar in the hull and never lose bottom contact.

[Champ187elite]

Garmin Brent Ehler Picked up this year at hes running GT-34UHD for shallow area and the GT-30/ GT-8 combo once he gets into deeper water.

[Todd Driscoll]

Garmin Brent Ehler Picked up this year at hes running GT-34UHD for shallow area and the GT-30/ GT-8 combo once he gets into deeper water.

This is exactly what I do. I have both the 30 and 34 installed. Prefer the 34 when depths allow, but as others have stated, once you get in depths 25-30 and greater, SideVu will fade so I switch to the 30.

[Juan Lobo]

What is involved in switching out a transducer? Not near the boat and thinking about buying a new transducer before I put my hands on the boat again, GT30 is on sale on Amazon right now. I've got a GT52 transom mounted already; is it as simple as unscrewing and unplugging the GT52 and replacing it with the GT30, or is the transducer hardwired to its cable and I'd need to pull the cable for the new transducer?

[BassTracker175]

Can gt30 be used directly on Echomap Plus series? Or a GCV 10 box is required?

[fishin couillon]

What is involved in switching out a transducer?

Running the wires to the head unit and plug up......

BUT the GT30 does not have 2d so if you want to 2d you will need the GT8 or GT15 and the Y cable to connect to unit.

Can gt30 be used directly on Echomap Plus series? Or a GCV 10 box is required?

Box not required to use on the EC Plus units but see my comment on this post.

[DR. DROP]

This is exactly what I do. I have both the 30 and 34 installed. Prefer the 34 when depths allow, but as others have stated, once you get in depths 25-30 and greater, SideVu will fade so I switch to the 30.

So what is needed to run- configure this combo. Two units at the console?
The 30 and 34 are 12 pin and GT8 is 8pin?
A Y cable and 2 units networked?

[Royt]

Garmin just needs to come up with a better all around transducer. WOW, reading all these post on here makes my head spin. Shouldn't be this complicated!