Humminbird Side Imaging Forums
Side Imaging Forums => 1197c SI, 1198c SI & 1199ci HD SI => Topic started by: clemsontiger on September 02, 2012, 10:11:09 PM
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I just received my 1198c SI back from the factory where it was repaired and where it received the new download 6.420. I reinstalled on my boat and then reprogrammed all settings in forced simulation mode. When finished, I restarted the unit. The depth would not display in any position; however, all other display choices worked fine. I checked the transducers (two joined by a Y-cable), and found that they were pinging very slowly (not normal). The graphics screen was also moving very slowly. I could not determine a fix. I then reset the defaults and the depth window returned to normal. I then reprogrammed all of my settings again and the depth window maintained itself. I thought at that point it may have been a glitch; however, the final step was to power off and restart. When I did, the problem re-surface and the depth display was gone again. I noticed someone else had an almost identical problem with searching the forum for "lost depth" but it was on a different unit in 2011 (you may want to take a look at it; however, there didn't seem to be any replies). I need your help. Otherwise, I will have to turn right around and mail the unit back to them again. I have the same version of software on my 998c SI and don't have this problem. I also moved the 998c SI to the position of the 1198c SI and the depth display worked fine! I never had this problem with the previous software version. I am at wit's end for an explanation. Any help would be appreciated.
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What is forced-simulation mode?
You want to set all of your custom settings under advanced mode
(Setup Menu, User-mode=Advanced).
Also set your sonar to on in the Setup Menu.
I don't see the point in doing anything in simulation mode.
Is your boat in the water?
If your transducer is not in the water, the depth will most likely
not be shown. It can't receive sonar echos through the air.
On dry land, try putting your transducer in a tall bucket of water.
That might work.
On your sonar screen, press menu and set the scroll speed to max for it to
move faster.
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The forced simulation mode just allowed me to set all settings without attaching all of the wiring, but it is not relevant here. My boat is in the garage, and I don't ever have a problem with the transducers reading in the garage, though the readings are not accurate (usually read 2-4 feet). Sonar is on. Depth display has always been there in the past (~ 8 months). The scroll speed is at the mid-point setting; however, the screen is barely scrolling. I am sure that this is a result of the problem. The transducer pings at about 1 ping every second as opposed to 10 or more per second under normal conditions. It seems like the unit is bad. Remember, I connected the 998 up in place of the 1198 and the 998 worked fine showing depth with no issues. It surprised me that the "restore defaults" temporarily fixed it, but after again programming in my settings and turning the unit off, the depth display was lost again.
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You can't get a good test without the boat being in the water.
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UPDATE: I just figured out what was happening thought it doesn't make much sense, but at least I can fix it. I decided to try to find what parameter that I was changing that would cause the depth display to disappear since it is there when I "restore defaults". I started in the "sonar" tab and started changing the parameters a few at the time. The culprit was the "water type" parameter. I was setting this to "salt deep" at the direction of humminbird technical services to aid in better shallow water performance. With the prior software revisions, this did not cause a problem. However, with the new 6.420 revision, it will not display the depth window and has a reduced pinging frequency when operated in my garage. I never got to see if it would be a problem in the water. The second I changed the setting to either "freshwater" or "saltwater (shallow)", the problem went away. Now, the strangest thing is that I have the same software version on my 998c SI unit with the "saltwater (deep)" selection and do not have the problem. Anyway, I thought I would let everyone know the outcome of this strange problem. I am going to keep both units set for "freshwater" going forward as there have been some other improvements regarding shallow water performance that will hopefully help in this area. Thanks everyone.
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clemsontiger
Thanks for posting the solution to your problem. Others with similar issues will have a place to start.
Sometimes members try to help others and are left wondering if it worked or not.
Mike
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If I set mine to max mode and have surface clutter set low (1 or 2 verse the oem setting of 5) I don't get a depth reading in my garage. I think it has more to do with the surface clutter setting verse max mode but never played with this any further.
Just another FYI for anyone out there. I panicked for a few minutes one day when I didn't see the depth field show up when I had the unit powered up at home. I just went through my settings really quick and found what caused that to happen. No more panic attaches... lol
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Sorry I wasn’t here to offer help but I don’t usually post on Sundays and yesterday was “I gotta do what my Wife wants around the house day”, which is also know as Labor Day (for more than one reason)… The menu changes that both clemsontiger and wolfs4evr made affect the way the unit uses shallow water sonar returns. A depth reading in your garage would probably fall within this area so the units could not find the bottom reading and slowed their transmit/receive cycles to be able to hear a water depth from a much deeper range. This resulted in the lack of a digital depth reading as well as the slowed ping rate and slow sonar screen speed. Don’t rely on the sonar readings, or lack of, that you get when the boat is not on a lake, river or ocean. Software updates sometimes contain additional changes that can affect whether you will or will not get sonar readings when out of the water. In addition, I would not make any changes to the sonar menus from the factory settings until out on the water so that you can see if they are still the settings that you want and need to use.
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FYI:
I noticed in prior updates, that the depth would show in my garage(dry transducer).
With the newest update (6.310 on my 1197), the depth only shows when the
transducer is in the water.