The original StarFish 450F sonar offers a powerful, yet affordable, entry level side scan sonar system for shallow water survey work. Since its launch, the StarFish 450F has gained worldwide recognition as the most portable, affordable, towed side scan sonar on the market. Powered by a 450kHz CHIRP transmission, the 450F provides wide range sonar coverage up to 100m/ 300ft per channel (200m/ 600ft total swathe) with good, clear image definition.

Simple Operation

StarFish systems have been designed to be ‘plug & play’, connecting to your PC/laptop via a top‐box with USB connection. The topbox allows the sonar to be powered from both AC (i.e. mains supply) or DC (i.e. battery, generator) sources and multiple adaptor cables are supplied with every system, making it straightforward to power the StarFish system from your existing power source. Our intuitive StarFish Scanline software, designed for Windows operating systems, has an easy‐to‐use interface. With helpful ‘Wizards’ to get you started, you’ll be up and running in no time. For more experienced operators, enabling advanced features within the software is extremely simple to implement through the clever use of interactive displays, tabbed menus and ‘Widgets’.

CHIRP

Utilising the latest in advanced CHIRP (Compressed High Intensity Radar Pulse) acoustic technology and digital‐signal‐processing (DSP) techniques at the core of its imaging capabilities, StarFish sonar systems have the ability to detect small closely spaced targets at far greater distances than conventional single frequency, monotonic systems. By sweeping the acoustic transmission from one frequency to another, the bandwidth of this ‘chirped’ signal allows closely spaced targets to be imaged individually instead of typically becoming merged into one larger target. CHIRP techniques also help to remove random or out‐of‐band noise, therefore reducing the risk of acoustic interference.