Comparing 600kHz and 1MHz AWAC

Up until now the AWAC has been available in its 1MHz model, however recently Nortek has made the AWAC available as a 600kHz as well. What this means to the user is that they will now be able to perform measurements in deeper waters. Even better news is that the Acoustic Surface Tracking (AST) allows us to do this without any loss of frequency resolution. By this we mean that we can still measure those small and short waves extremely well.

Recent comparisons between the 1MHz and 600kHz here in the Oslo Fjord show that both instruments were capable of measuring boat wakes that were merely 5 cm high and 2 seconds long. The 1MHz performed this measurement from a modest depth of 14 meters however the 600kHz measured this same result from a depth of 60 meters(!).

The only obvious difference with the 600kHz is the center transducer which is approximately twice the diameter of the center transducer for the 1MHz. The reason that we have done this is to maintain a narrow beam width so that AST can properly resolve the shortest waves as possible.