Lowrance releases StructureScan

MARINE Business got a hands-on demonstration of Lowrance’s long awaited Structure Scan sounder unit at Glenbawn Dam in the NSW Hunter Valley.

The new sonar-imaging module is a world first offering fishos a new dimension in underwater picture-like displays, with the combination of side-to-side, straight down, and full panoramic viewing.

Navico’s director of sales & marketing, Damien Weber, said that dealer and consumer interest has been extremely positive with Navico having very high expectations for the new product.

“The results seen on the water have been phenomenal and we anticipate a high attachment rate to all HDS units being sold,” said Weber.

“Early adopter HDS customers we expect to be particularly keen to purchase given the add on value and unmatched performance StructureScan delivers,” he said.

The StructureScan is a combination of SideScan and an exclusive new DownScan Imaging technology.

The new DownScan Imaging feature allows anglers, for the first time, to see submerged detail directly beneath their boats, providing a complete underwater picture in a screen format that is easy to interpret.

SideScan shoots the beam sideways allowing 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 offering a much clearer underwater image. You might remember Lowrance’s screen shot of a crocodile swimming underneath a boat in a Northern Teritory river, with its legs and croc-shaped 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 would have for freshwater impoundment fishing, river fishing and estuary work.

We were able to view a drowned farmhouse beneath the flooded dam, and even the chicken shed nearby. A mannequin, which Lowrance placed below the surface was eerily visible with arms and legs easy to define.

The added improvement in clarity is instantly recognisable. Submerged trees, drop-offs, reefs and wrecks are all 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 Structure Scan 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 a drowned car.

SideScan, new to Lowrance, has a range of 120 feet from the boat. Unlike traditional sonar with a screen moving right to left, the SideScan screen moves 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. It’s this gap that Lowrance has filled with DownScan and what makes up StructureScan. The DownScan 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 tarnsduce 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.