Lowrance not holding bottom, Help?

John Buoy · Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2012 12:02 pm Post subject:

Kingy have you selected the correct transducer in your head unit settings ?
_________________
_____________________________________

A Kid Into Fishing Is A Kid Off The Streets

brush · Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2012 12:38 pm Post subject:

I had an older Eagle sounder do this to me a long time ago. It turned out that I had knocked the transducer somewhere and damaged the internals (I had a tinny at the time which I worked hard). When I removed the transducer you could feel something loose rattling around inside the old one.

If your sounder was working fine and you have not altered any of the settings this is a possibility. The way I established what was wrong with mine was to take the unit back to the dealer and they plugged it into the their connections for the demo and all worked fine. Hence, I knew it was a transducer problem or something else wrong at the boat end.

I have also been told that if there is any corrosion on the connectors it can cause the transducer to loose power.

Brush

PS - I currently use a HDS5 which works just fine. However, I have not updated the operating system or mucked around with the settings as it works just fine out of the box. And no I have no relationship with Lowrance or any of their dealers.

phourmouzis · Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2012 1:07 pm Post subject: Re:

doddsj · Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2012 3:02 pm Post subject:

G'day,

Go back to the basics and reset your sounder to factory default settings. Make sure you have it set to Auto not Manual and then see if the sounder works O.K. Once you have done this if there are no changes contact Lowrance to see what they suggest. If this works and the readings are O.K. then you can play around with the Manual Settings.

Cheers,
Steve.

Pops70 · Posted: Sat Feb 25, 2012 1:04 pm Post subject:

G'day mate,

I had a similar "problem" with my Lowrance systems.

I've got a Lowrance fishfinder (can't remember the model right now) and the transducer had been mounted by the old owner of the boat.
When my Garmin GPS broke down I bought a Lowrance Elite 5 DSI Combo and mounted the DSI transducer right next to the other one.
As both are using different frequencies, that shouldn't be a problem.
As long as I was doing between 0 and 8 knots I was able to see the bottom on both units. Everything faster the DSI would loose contact and not display either the bottom or the depth.

Cut a long story short:

I let someone else drive the boat, watched the transducers and as soon as we speed up, the DSI transducer wasn't covered by water anymore.
No wonder it didn't work.
Had to relocate it and since then it works like a charm.

Remember the unit needs to be submerged and not just touching the surface. Submerged whilst driving slow doesn't guarantee that it is when you speed up.

Just my five cent and maybe something to check.

Cheers

Pops

kingy1978 · Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2012 12:49 pm Post subject:

Thanks mate I'll check that next time I'm out. What actually happens is it wont even give me the reading in the top of the screen of the metres deep? It just has two dashes like this "--" whilst underway. What speed should it be able to display the metres deep too? 60kph? 40kph?

frozenpod · Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2012 1:16 pm Post subject:

Depends on the depth, frequency and angle of the tranducer.

I have had no problems holding bottom in 60m with 350w tranny with GME sounder at 80km/hr or 585 with 1kw tranny.

Pops70 · Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2012 6:04 pm Post subject: Re:

KfcScotty · Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2012 9:45 pm Post subject: Re:

kingy1978 · Posted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 10:16 am Post subject:

Last night i checked out my transducer and it was a little higher than the instuctions show it should be. I moved it so the bottom of the hull is in line with the top of the transducer as it sits horizontially. I moved it down about an incha nd a half - hopefully this makes a difference?

Which transducer should I be selecting from the menu? I cant remember now off the top of my head what is says exactly on the little silver tag but i know its 83/200 ducer and I'm sure I have the Generic 83/200 ducer seleted in the menu....