Mr G.
Are you my Dad? Dad was a teacher & went by Mr. G.
I'm not knowledgeable enough to compare flashers, & think a lot of the feedback you'll get is emotional anyway, kinda' like Chevy vs Ford. I was comparing Vex vs Marcum vs Lowrance, & got strong supporters & haters of each.
I have a Vex FL8, but before that used a Humminbird single color flasher that I got at a garage-sale for $5. It worked fine, & improved my catch-rate 1000% over fishing "blind". Any flasher, properly rigged, can work for you.
A multi-color flasher will show you "when there are fish down there", but will also tell you when they're interested in your bait. When green turns to red, you know they're directly under you.
On a single-color, you can still tell when the fish are coming to your bait, especially when they're aggressive. Generally the blips will move up & become one-blip with your bait. That's when you're about to get bit.
I've probably not helped your confusion much, but would recommend just getting something - whatever you can afford. You can always upgrade, & there is a pretty good market out there for used flashers.
I pretty much can guarantee you'll be happy with a single-color flasher for a couple seasons. They will do the job quite well. As far as rigging, you'll need a way to float or hang your transducer perfectly flat. Look for a transducer with the cable coming out of its top, so if you hold the cable, the transducer is sitting flat, like the Lowrance Fish Lo-k-tor's. Otherwise, here's a rig I used with my Hunnimbird which worked very well:
http://www.iceshanty.com/ice_fishing/index.php?topic=15327.0Paul
ps - I got my FL8 for $160 off the internet. Check the "for sale" areas of sites like this, & ebay.
