Lowrance’s innovative StructureScan combines SideScan and DownScan technology to produce an easy to define underwater image. Scott Thomas reports.
BOAT Fishing recently got a hands-on demonstration of Lowrance’s long awaited Structure Scan unit at Glenbawn Dam in the NSW Hunter Valley. The new sonar-imaging module is a world first as it offers fishos the combination of side-to-side, straight down, and full panoramic viewing. StructureScan is a combination of SideScan and the exclusive new DownScan Imaging technology. DownScan allows anglers, for the first time, to see submerged detail directly beneath their boats to provide a complete underwater picture in a screen format that is easy to interpret.
SideScan shoots the beam sideways to allow fishos a detailed view of underwater structure on each side of the boat.
Lowrance introduced Broadband sonar technology in 2008 as an add-on box before the release of the HDS units. Broadband was, at the time, a major advancement in sounder technology and offered a potentially much clearer underwater image. You might remember Lowrance’s screenshot of a crocodile swimming underneath a boat in a Northern Territory river with its legs and croc-shape clearly visible. The StructureScan builds on this HDS technology and throws in a few added features to make the upgrade and cost more than worthwhile.
Lowrance’s demonstration at Glenbawn Dam showed us the huge potential this product has for freshwater impoundment fishing, river fishing and estuary work. We were able to view a drowned farmhouse beneath the flooded dam and even a chicken shed nearby. A mannequin, which Lowrance had placed below the surface was eerily visible with its arms and legs easily defined.
The added improvement in clarity is instantly recognisable. Submerged trees, drop-offs, reefs and wrecks are all forms of structure that until now showed as a blob on the screen. Was it bait, a tree, a reef, and were the fish-like markings nearby, actually fish? With StructureScan the finer detail is accurately revealed – branches stick out and jagged reefs, boat wrecks and larger fish are clearly defined.
Lowrance’s NSW sales manager, Paul Bakker, came across a sunken car under his local boat ramp in Sydney’s northern suburbs. Previous sounders picked up structure, but it was only with StructureScan that Paul could define the drowned car.
The SideScan technology, new to Lowrance, has a range of 120 feet from the boat. Unlike traditional sonar, which moves right to left on the screen, the SideScan displays top to bottom with the boat at the centre of the screen. Objects such as drowned fences, pipes, etc. can be seen running across the screen with a gap in the middle. This “gap” is displayed by DownScan; the technology works right to left on the screen and allows the same type of excellent definition as the SideScan. Combine the two side-by-side and it’s easier to pinpoint the exact location of fish in relation to your boat.
Another neat addition, which is available on HDS units, is the scrollback feature. Structure you travel past can be “rewound” and viewed again, and there’s even the option to drop a waypoint on the structure once you’ve scrolled back.
StructureScan can be purchased as an LSS-1 black box which connects via a single high-speed, high-bandwidth Lowrance ethernet cable. The cable and special StructureScan transducer is included in the package. The compatible HDS units are available in HDS5 (12.7cm), HDS7 (16.3cm), HDS8 (21.3cm) and HDS10 (26.4cm) screen sizes, in various configurations. More at: www.lowrance.com.au
