Mounting a fishfinder transducer to the plastic? will it affect 83Hrz

Mounting a fishfinder transducer to the plastic?The best place to mount it in the water, will it affect 83Hrz, does the 83hertz or smaller has a wider distance then at 200 hertz right? I am just trying to get the best bang for the buck please give me some suggestion i really appreciate it thank you

I'm assuming you mean 83 kHz and 200 kHz, correct?  The plastic material, or polyethylene of roto-molded kayaks does affect sound signals since the material has very tiny air bubbles inside of it, which are a natural result from the production process.  The important question is how much it will affect your signal.  I glued the transducer of my sounder to the inside of my kayak for years and didn't notice a degradation of the signal.  Manufacturers say that gluing your transducer to the inside of your boat usually will not affect the signal too much if your transducer is operating at 200 kHz or less. 

Short answer: Go for it.

Cool man thank you.

Boy....My first thought, I would be hesitant to mount it to where the sound has to penetrate the plastic.  Hopefully more on this forum will have experimented with that and can give you an answer from trying it.  True a lower frequency will have an easier time with penetration but I would think most kayak fishers would be better off running the highest frequency ducer they can.  Higher frequency will give you better resolution but also not be as good at penetration.  So...you can run the 83khz ducer and it will penetrate down to say 1000 meters (or whatever it claims) but really how many kayakers are fishing those depths?  Running the 200 khz in water most fished (probably less than 300 feet)  will give you much better resolution for finding fish.  If your only objective is to know how deep bottom is, then I think it isn't a problem to blow through the hull.  My preference would be to have higher frequency with no solid obstruction or air bubbles in between the ducer and the water.  There is a very good reason sonographers use gel in between the ducer and body when scanning a person.  Too big of a change in material when sound is traveling will create too much scatter.  I would just hate to think you are missing information by running the 83 and first runnin the sound through the plastic.   Btw...the frequency doesn't necessarily reflect your cone size.  That comes more from your transducer design. 

Where did you end up mounting you transducer?

Where did you end up mounting you transducer?

Uhhhhh.....sorry Sandman.  I am a sonor expert but a complete rookie newbie in the kayak world.  That is why I joined. 
I have many questions too.  This is a great website. I'm hopin somebody else will jump in and give their input too.  The
guy who first replied to you may be spot on.  I was just giving my thoughts as it pertains to sonar aspects.  I don't have
a kayak yet.  I will soon though.  If good ol Uncle Sam coughs up enough of a refund for me.  As is is now I only have an
inflatable and screwing into the bladder to mount a ducer would probably be a terrible idea.   

Most kayak fishermen go with the lower frequency transducers because the units they come with are the cheaper models.  The whole reason I got into this whole kayak fishing thing is that it's relatively cheap.  I and others have found that the lower frequency transducers penetrate the plastic well enough to give you bottom and activity readings.  I still use a bottom-of-the-line sounder but will probably upgrade to a higher frequency model sooner or later because of how easy Hobie has made it to mount a transducer on the Pro Anglers.

Most of us mount our transducers to shoot through the hull and fish less than 200' of water (not legal to fish deeper than 120' in WA except for halibut or fresh water)

It's a couple mils of plastic.

We avoid air bubbles by making a foam 'puck' and cutting out a hole for the transducer.  We glue said puck to the boat, then fill with water.

Please read this thread from April 2010  http://www.northwestkayakanglers.com/index.php?topic=4506.0

There are probably 50+ other threads discussing it if you use the search function (or search with google and use the domain filter)

Puck it! And follow the advice in the forums!  It worked for this newbie.