In a split beam echo sounder, the transducer design needs to have minimal side lobes because the angular position and level of the side lobes establishes the usable signal level and phase angle limits for determining target strength. In order to suppress effectively the generation of unwanted side lobes in the directivity pattern of split beam transducer, the spacing and size of the transducer elements need to be controlled less than half of a wavelength. With this purpose, a 50 kHz tonpilz type transducer with a half-wavelength diameter in relation to the development of a split beam transducer was designed using the equivalent circuit model, and the underwater performance characteristics were measured and analyzed. From the in-air and in-water impedance responses, the measured value of the electro-acoustic conversion efficiency for the designed transducer was 51.6%. A maximum transmitting voltage response (TVR) value of 172.25dB re $1{mu}Pa/V$ at 1m was achieved at 52.92kHz with a specially designed matching network and the quality factor was 10.3 with the transmitting bandwidth of 5.14kHz. A maximum receiving sensitivity (SRT) of -183.57dB re $1V/{mu}Pa$ was measured at 51.45kHz and the receiving bandwidth at -3dB was 1.71kHz. These results suggest that the designed tonpilz type transducer can be effectively used in the development of a split beam transducer for a 50kHz fish sizing echo sounder.