Furuno 1971F
Submitted by Woodsy65 on Mon, 2019-02-04 08:50
Looking a purchasing a new sounder and am interested in the Furuno 1971F touchscreen combo.
Wondering if anyone here has one and what their opinion of them is. I have had Lowrance and would prefer to try something different. Any info/advice would be appreciated.
Woodsy
Mooseknuckle
Posts: 95
Date Joined: 14/05/13
Also interested
Also interested - have looked at online reports but nothing better than actual people that have used and not trying to sell.
Spoke to Taylor Marine and they still recommended the 588 as a pure sounder.
Apparently (only via online searching) there is still an issue with the chirp.
D_d_001
Posts: 1522
Date Joined: 09/03/13
IF only a sounder you are
IF only a sounder you are after have a look at the Simrad S2009. think these look like the best value for money on the market.
BlueKiaser
Posts: 74
Date Joined: 22/04/15
Had one for a few months
Short story: I'm ok with my purchase, but don't feel I can give a fair review because I still have it paired to an old 15 year old (600W) transducer (so no chirp info sorry).
I lose sounding signal when going quick (but that's probably transducer pairing. I also lost signal when paired to my old FCV-582L ... but now it's worse, a 1kW upgrade may fix that ... I'm not convinced).
The built in GPS does lose position now and then and I have had to power off and on the unit a couple of times to fix screen refresh problems but nothing really annoying.
Long story:
My old Furuno FCV-582L had a dodgy/broken transducer connector on the back. My Navman plotter had charts that were a decade too old, so I took the punt and got the GP-1971F about 6 months ago.
I'm finding I'm still using my old Navman plotter and the GP-1971F mainly for sounding (fish finder). I like the 9" screen for sounding and my old navman as a seperate screen, running the GP-1971F in split screen for both charting and sounding reduces my sounding display too much for my liking. But if you are looking for a good small form factor combo, then you'll probably tolerate that more than I do.
I've got a 22" Ali that kidney slaps in the slop, so I was concerned about going to a touch screen. That hasn't been too bad, unless travelling harsh, but then I used to struggle even with my old 582 in those sort of conditions.
And I now pretty much only move the depth on the touch screen when travelling and bumping about.
Anyways, from what I could see, the technical specifications of the GP-1971F for sounding was the same as the latest 588. I wish I had a 1kW paired up to it to give you a more confident review of it.
Only fished <50m depth so far (with GP-1971F), but it's finding me fish well when slowly sounding an area (got me a 61cm Dhu yesterday on a solo run ... double header actually ... 56cm went back, less than 6mile out).
Feel free to PM me if you want more info (or mbl# for a chat).