Humminbird Side Imaging Forums
Side Imaging Forums => 1197c SI, 1198c SI & 1199ci HD SI => Topic started by: wcahoe on April 28, 2010, 02:09:41 PM
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I have a new 1197 running 4.75 software. I have a 2D transducer and 3D transducer connected through a “Y” cable. The fish look like “Blobs” instead of “Arches”. When I remove the Y cable and connect the 3D transducer directly to my new 1197 perfect “Arches” appear. When I connect my 2D directly to the 1197 “Blobs” are back, any suggestions? I set the sensitivity down to 2, and I barely had a bottom reading. It was still displaying the “Blob”. Does anyone else have perfect Arches with 2D and 3D transducers connected through a Y cable? Any thoughts about replacing the “Y” cable with a switch? Those of you who use switches, how will do they work?
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Were you traveling at the same boat speed with the same menu settings and View screen when using the 2D only transducer and the HDSi only transducer?
Is your 2D transducer inside-the-hull? If so, did it have comparable bottom readings both inside and outside the hull before you epoxied it in place?
Could you post an image of some fish using the 2D transducer only?
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Greg - Same Speed approx - 3MPH - I had a Ranger Dealer install the transducers it never left the shop as far as I know - 2D is inside the hull - I can try to get pictures in a week or so. I was hoping someone could tell me if this is normal or abnormal? Thanks for your help - Bill
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Bill,
With the same unit settings and boat speed you should be getting the same sort of 2D sonar readings on the HDSi transducer as you should on the 2D inside-the-hull transducer. Sounds like a transducer mounting issue or perhaps a bad transducer. I would like to see an image of fish though just to make sure that it is not the angle of the 2D transducer while the boat is at a slower speed.
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I will get pictures for you - Thanks for your help! I hope Humminbird understands how important your help is to people like me. It is hard to know what is right or wrong; if you have never seen something work properly. When you have $3,000 for the unit, $200 in options, $200 in software, and $400 in installation and the unit does not function properly - you get panicked. Thanks for your help - Bill
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Please don't panic. I have a feeling that you need to be taught the basics of how a sonar unit sees things in the water.
Basically your sonar unit is telling you how far away something is from the transducer. Not the depth of things unless they are directly under the transducer. IE if you were to hang a plumb line down straight below the transducer then you would see the depth to the object directly along the plumb line. Everything else is based on angles and distance from the transducer to the object that's reflecting sound waves.
Fish that are moving will enter the cone of influence at the outer edge and thus be farther away from the transducer when they first start reflecting soundwaves back to the tranduer.
When the same fish gets directly under the transducer then it will be closer to the transducer than before.
As the fish starts to exit out of the cone of influence of the transducer it will again be farther away.
This is how a perfect fish arch is formed. Not all fish will create a perfect fish arch.
It depend on how the fish moves though the cone of sound put out by the transducer.
I would suggest you go to the Lowrance web site and look at their tutitorial on how a fish arch is formed on a 2d sonar unit.
A movie helps to see what's going on.
I learned all this when I was still only 16 years old when my dad bought a Lowrance "Little Green Box" depth finder and I read the manual on how to use the thing. I gave a speech in HS Speech class and taught 25 other students how a fish finder worked for the first time. And half of them were teenage girls. I use diagrams of the process which helped them to understand.
Years ago Fishing Facts Magazine published an artile on how depth sounders work and they published about 8 picture diagrams that explained how a depth finder works.
Many people are not aware of how SONAR works. The Lowrance web site does a pretty good job of explaing to new people how a fish arch is formed.
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Moose,
I don’t think that this is his problem as he was seeing arches when he used the HDSi transducer but got blogs with the inside-the-hull mounted 2D transducer. Since both transducers use the same exact elements inside of them the difference is in the mounting of the transducers or in a bad inside-the-hull transducer. Seeing a few screen snapshots may be able to let us determine which it is.
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While you are investigaing the installation, find out what substance was used to attach the 2D transducer inside the hull.
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Wayne P - The dealer said it came with the transducer. I dropped the off and picked it up. Bill
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If they used that supplied epoxy, that eliminates my guess to your issue.