I am upgrading my bow unit from a Humminbird 859 to a Helix 9 Chirp DI GPS G2N.    I'm assuming the transducer that will come with the unit can't be used mounted to the trolling motor, at least that is what H Bird told me. I have a Terrova so I have the built in transducer. They do have an adapter cable for all the Helix models according to the Minnkota site. If I run my unit through the Terrova's transducer would I be sacrificing anything in terms of the quality of my images?  I would appreciate any feedback from any of you that have some experience with this issue.

 

I'm using the built in transducer on my Terrova for connecting to my Garmin. I don't see much difference between the images on my bow mount from the images on my console unit using Garmin's transducer. If there are some slight differences, it doesn't matter to me. I'm looking mostly for depth, temp and how hard the bottom is. Both transducer units show what I'm looking for at a quality I'm happy with.

I have not seen anything 'universal' that worked as good as something made 'specific' to that same product.

I have never used an electric trolling motor, but, I have set up several for my customers. I have only converted one setup and that was because of CHIRP. My customer had a 1kW Airmar CHIRP transducer and wanted to share this across his network. He too, was satisfied!

1. Humminbird is wrong.  You absolutely can use the DI transducer strapped to your Terrova. People have been doing it for years. (Look up transducer shields and how to run the cable).
2. The US2 transducer will compromise image quality: you will not have DI below the bow.
3. That said, if all you want up there is 2D, it will work great.