Having neither a boat worthy of the name nor any sonar equipment of my own less than 35 years old, I was very pleased to be on board the M.V.Deepscan as part of some Loch Ness Project work using a new Simrad SM2000 sonar recently. Gone is the scraping stylus and the distinctive smell of burning paper, and arrived is the mini tower case, computer keyboard and monitor, and a Windows (r) style look to the interface. In the picture below, Adrian Shine is studying the screen as we drift over an undisclosed, but allegedly deep part of the loch. John Minshull was the skipper.

Photo Copyright  © Dick Raynor & Loch Ness Project, 2000

The sonar has a variety of modes to suit different purposes, and these will be described more fully in later publications.

Photo Copyright  © Dick Raynor & Loch Ness Project, 2000

These rather poor screen shots serve as a lesson to never go anywhere without a tripod, but I hope they give a flavour of this excellent new type of sonar. In case anyone thinks that this shows a new maximum depth of 276.1 metres, I should point out that the window label is "pointer", and it is the mouse arrow referred to down there in the bottom left corner of the picture.

Photo Copyright ©  Dick Raynor & Loch Ness Project, 2000

More options than you can shake a stick at!

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