Marine Electronics

Start at the hole in the hull

The electronics decision usually starts at the hull. Garmin and Airmar bronze thru hull transducers (B619, B75M, B75H, B175HW) are the sounder half of the job and are specified by power, 600W or 1kW, by pin count and by tilt angle, so the transducer has to match both the head unit and the hull before anything else is ordered.

Above deck it splits three ways: VHF and AIS (Simrad RS40-B with Class B AIS, Furuno FA70 transceiver), radar (Garmin GMR Fantom and xHD3), and instruments that need no power, like a Ritchie Helmsman flush mount compass. On the Fantom line the pedestal and the antenna array are sold separately, so confirm you are buying both halves.