Hard to find good advice on bigger Raymarine gear. Have a look at the electronics forum on thehulltruth.com . Fair bit of info there once you start digging.

 Raymarine also have their own support forum so might be worth a post there as well.

Don't go transom mount, you will be disappointed.

How deep does your M265 go? I heard they were pretty good at punching deep but most people are having heaps of issues with CHIRP with real world conditions in chop.

Langa has a M260 (non chirp) and it reads to 450m, so I would hae thought the M265 should be better, how deep do you need to go? If you cant get over 400 m with your M265, it sounds like you are having the same issues as other people with CHIRP? I would really appreciate if you could provide a summary of how your M265 goes in varying depths and sea conditions? Do you run it is fixed frequency or in CHIRP?

2 and 3 kW options are a pain....A shoot through 2 kW
Airmar R111 would be the go assuming your current CHIRP shoot through works OK. You don't loose much through the hull, less than people think, main issue is you get bubbles along the hull which upsets the reading. To fix this, you need to go through hull with a performance faring, B265 or R109. A 28 ft boat should be OK, I am thinking of putting a B260 on my 24 ft boat.

To be honest, a Furuno FCV295 and non CHIRP 2 kW R199 may give you better results with less hassle than CHIRP.

Some feedback on CHIRP would be great.

There are quite a few people running 2kw transom mounted, Chivers marine and fibrelite boats make thier own custom brackets to suit the 2kw trannies. Maybe give them a call and they should be able to give more info. 

Im not that farmilar with the raymarine equipment but ill assume it uses airmar transducers?

2-3kw transducers are massive in proportions. Running a pocket mount version in a custom bracket off the back of the boat could be an option, getting clean water could be an issue though.

secondly I have said it a few times but I have had really good sucess running chirp, i use garmin gear and there chirp software is brilliant. I ran a pocket mount 1kw 265LH and reading 1000m was no issue at all, very clear and defined readings. I think the most important part of running chirp or any sounder set up is getting the correct transducer and mounting it in the cleanest water possible. A wet face transducer will always read better then an in hull, if installed correctly that is. I have quite a few photos of my instalation and how well it would read, i'll put some pics up shortly.

if your looking at a 2-3kw in hull first thing you should check is to make sure your raymarine sounder module can handle it. The M265 has the same elements as my PM265, what sort of depth do you get out of your current setup?

pocket mounting a transducer may be an option, you can pocket mount a 2-3kw transducer too if you have enough room, aythings possible just depends on the budget.

cheers

luke

Hey Luke

Some feedback on how deep the 265 can reliably sound to and show fish would be great. The 2 and 3 kW trannies are all well and good but it is hard to get them in smaller (sub 25 ft) boats.

I recon a B265 in performance fairing would be the best bet as the water will be very clean and free of aeration with the fairing, and although bloody enormous, I recon the fairing would be OK on a 24 ft boat. I run a B744 in a fairing, awesome performance.

Hence, pretty interested to hear how much better/deeper the 265 goes compared with a 260 which is only really good to 350m showing fish in any detail.

I have just added some pictures.
First picture – you can see changing from High Chirp to Low Frequency still picks up bottom in 300 quite clearly although I would like a better image.
I have don’t quite thorough research into the sounders and I get a lot of negative feedback with the chirp. I personally really like my Raymarine chirp sounder I mark fish at 20 knots in average weather, 25knots in good conditions and bottom at 30knots in 50m of water.
Shallow water im sure its hard to beat It really deciphers between bait and pelagics in a tight ball and makes out the shape of wrecks clearly.
Im often sambo jigging in 100-150 and marking fish all through water column.
Depths up to 300m I can see a nice bottom with the low frequency however it struggles to see fish in the middle of the water column (maybe because I have a LOW HIGH set up).
Depths greater than 300m I start losing good bottom image.
Sounder image unclear past 400m and drops out at about 600m even on calm day.

Because of my current set up with my Raymarine screens im thinking to stay with Raymarine.
I figure the ultimate set up would be:
1) keep my current system and just add to it
2) install via a POCKET MOUNT 3kw airmar transducer
3) match it up with the CP570
Although I don’t believe you can get the pocket mount 3kw in AUS and the CP570 hasn’t even been released

 That sounds like a pretty good plan, theres a boat i saw in the US running a 3kw pocket mount and he was reading the bottom well past 5000m with it, very impressive stuff!

The model that you are after inwould think is a CM599LHW, it has a huge frequency range and would be a really nice setup, you can get them in aus and they are about 15kgs!!

I'll PM you some details on what i did with my old boat and pics of my pocket mount. Its not really that hard for a good fibreglasser as long as they can reach the mount from the inside. They need the transducer with them to make a mould of it.

John I got really good readings with my pm265 so a B265 should be equal in performace. I could mark fish on the bottom in 600m no worries and pick up mid water bait and other stuff all the way to 1000, the only variable is the brand of equipment we are using, i know simarads had lots of issues with chirp on the bsm2, im not sure about the bsm 3 however. What gear were you running?

cheers

 A wet box will be more cost effective and it would also get you back on the water in no time. You would just have to make sure you have enough room in there to mount it, the dimensions are available on the airmar website.