Which locators play best together?

[leech~~]

You can go to one of the big outfitter stores and run them all at the same time and see which ones work well together by turning them on and off one at a time.

[deadeye]

I'm glad this topic came up. I'm finally going to bite the bullet and get a new flasher this year and its good to hear what works well together. It sounds like the ice 45 will play nice with my freinds vexilars and showdowns.

[marine_man]

We've been able to get up to 4 flashers working in the same house. This includes a combination of LX5s, VX1s, FL18s, FL8s, and FL20s. The LX5 can tune out almost any interference, but definitely gives the rest the most troubles. It just takes a little time for everyone to work through the interference, but it can be done.

This has been my experience as well. You can't press the IR button and bam, it's gone.. but if you work at it for a minute or two with both units you can almost always clear it to the point that it's workable.

The best case scenario for you, if you're fishing two units? One Marcum OR Vex, and one Humminbird, since as covered earlier, it operates on a different frequency.

marine_man

[jwmiller33]

humminbirds run on different frequencies than vex and marcums do, so if you have a bird, you will never run into interference problems. i havent fished next to another bird yet with my ice35 but i hear there isnt a problem

[Woody61]

Funny as I have a FL20 and an ICE35 and if I run both in the Otter the Bird is a little fuzzy but 1click of the IR button and it's as clear as a bell.

[jwmiller33]

interesting stuff woody. i bet that is because the FL20 is much more powerful than the ICE35, but i'd like to see what a humminbird sales rep would say about that

ive never had to use my interference rejection and i am ALWAYS fishing next to a FL18 or FL20

[Esox_Magnum]

All Vex's are 400 watts, Marcums 1000,1500 and 2500 I think HB I think is also 1000 or 1500

[magicstix]

Answer: NONE!! Why? They all have some kind of interfrence on one day or another. Somedays one model will clear it up better than others and viceversa on other outings. Between lil ripper and bottle fish they summed up what I seen last season. Start with one unit and work your way through the others, you may have to shut them all off and start with a different unit. Sometimes you can only reduce inter. to a point and have to live with it. Only problem you have is if it coming from another shack near you. I'm sure your not going to go over and say "hey buddy can you turn off your flasher so I can get my inter. worked out. thanks.."right.

I think interfence has to do with what kind of structure its bouncing off of.Reason I say this is one of our outings we fished by some submerged trees, worst inter. I've ever seen in my whole life. The lx5 was actully the worst in this spot. we ended up moving 50ft away later and all problems were gone. We mostly used a Fl8slt, fl20, ice35, lx5. Other outings a ice55 and a vx1.

As far as buying a new flasher, I'd buy a vx1, lots of features for the bucks. I personally bought a new fl20 but the biggest feature i wanted was the night lighting. Otherwise probalby been a vx1.

[Gissert]

magicstix nailed it. Bottom structure/content is often the primary component in interference generation. Sharp breaks, boulders, and standing timber causes signal returns at odd angles that can be very difficult to tune out at times.

Ive had a FL8, a FL 18, and a LX5 in my house at the same time on a flat soft bottom, we had no major problems.

On Ottertail fishing steep breaks, we had 2 vex's that had nightmarish interference even with 20 yards of separation.

The Bird sounds cool, I like the idea of a different frequency.

[Cliff Wagenbach]

Why do the Vexilars get so much interference? Just wondering If they really are that bad I might return it and get a marcum. The thing I dont like about the marcum is the arm that supports the tranducer, it seems flimsy/cheap, I worry about breaking it...

I own 3 Marcums for my business. The first thing that I do is remove that arm! Just drop the transducer down the side of the hole and you are good to go! Just remember to move the cable once in a while to avoid having it freeze in the ice on the side of the hole.

Cliff

[FishnUMD]

Late last spring on LOW while lake trout we had a LX3tc (mine), FL-8 and bird 55 all fishing within 50 yards of each other. my lx3tc and the bird were both able to kick all interference while the fl-8 couldn't kick anything (whether it was just the bird and fl-8 or my lx with the fl-8).

this experience has made my buddy decided to invest in a bird this coming winter over and vex. i would presume a higher model vex might kick the interference, but i would invest in either a marcum or a bird...

my $.02

[PerchJerker]

Some of these latest posts are confusing Interference (caused by other flashrs on the same frequency) with Sonar Returns (caused by items in the water, such as rocks, trees, weeds, steep breaks, etc.).

I have seen it more than enough times to know that Marcs are the best at tuning out Interference, and Vexs are the worst at tuning out Interference, and HB is right in the middle. You can adjust them and fiddle around with them and you might be able to clean up the Vex enough to be able to use it around other flashers (other brands), but imo you are facing a lot of frustration in that scenario.

Sonar Returns from items in the water or on the bottom need to be dealt with by adjusting your gain, your cone angle, or your location. The Vex guys like to say the suppresion cable that lowers the output even more is needed to read clearly in those situations. The high power guys say that if you send enough power down there you can identify what you're looking at and can still pick up your bait and the fish. IMO this part of the argument is really Ford vs. Chevy (ie. I think they both work), but I will also tell you that after having used both I'm on the Chevy side of this argument

Hope that helps a bit.

[Esox_Magnum]

My LX-5 shines in shallow weedy waters, use the narrow beam and the fine line and adjust the gain down low and it works great.

[magicstix]

Structure[rocks,trees,etc] seemed the only reasonable explaination to us why somedays you can have no interference and other days you have to hit the IR button a couple times.