Topic: Deep Water Transducer recomendations

[matt72580]

Hi all,
I am new to the forum so I'll share a little history. I have a 21ft Thunderjet Luxor offshore with a humminbird 998c HD SI I have had trouble with my unit from the day it was installed, It loses the bottom reading quite often if I am over 300ft and if I restart the unit I get a reading back. The frustrating thing is that it does it in shallower water sometimes and sometimes it works in deeper water, Up to 5-600ft. some days I can go hours and not restart the unit and some day I have to restart it 20-30 times. I have had it in to humminbird 5 times, tried every adjustment and setting possible and even replaced the transducer. I have been in contact with them recently and they just want to send me another transducer to try again. They did mention having a second transducer for deep water on a y cable. Does anyone have any recommendations on a transom mount 1k or 2k transducer or has anyone had any luck with these helping deep salt water readings. I rarely go deeper than 700ft though. Any information would be appreciated.
Thanks
Matt

[rnvinc]

It may be possible that the varied types of bottom compositions you are sounding could be causing some difficulties in the sound pulse not being reflected efficiently ...

There are a few settings that can enhance deeper water performance to a degree ...

* - "Switchfire Max" mode (under the Sonar tab) turns off the TVG feature ...
* - "Max Depth" (under the Sonar tab) set to actual water depth +50ft will allow the unit to work more efficiently ...
* - "Dual Beam" setting under "Transducer Select" (under the Sonar tab) will shut off the SI transmitters allowing more frequent pings from the 2d piezo (where the digital water depth is derived from) ...
* - "Salt Water Deep" setting under "Water Type" (under the Sonar tab) will change the algorithm used for water depth readings ... 

And always set filters to as close to Off as possible ...(filters tell unit to not show you things on the display)

* - "Noise Filter" (under the Sonar tab) to Off or Low ...unless needed to control RFI noise on the display ...

* - "Surface Clutter" (under the Sonar tab) to 7-10 ...higher number means less filtering ...

* - "Sensitivity" as high as one can stand the clutter on the display ...higher number means less filtering ...

I have no experience with the higher watt xducers to give input on them ...

Rickie

[matt72580]

Thanks for the info RNVINC, Next time I am out I will give those setting an adjustment, I do try to run my sensitivity as high as possible, I tried running the bottom depth close to what I was fishing as opposed to auto and didn't see a difference but maybe changing a few more things along with that may help.

[ITGEEK]

Could the sea wave height have anything to do with you losing bottom?
If you lose bottom with rougher seas, you may want to lower the transducer a bit.

[matt72580]

 RNVINC,
 I was out this sunday and tried adjusting the settings as you advised. It did change the fact that it would read more consistanlty in water around 250ft and below and I only had to restart the unit one time. However it would still drop out if I got near or went beyond 300ft. Humminbird sent me a new transducer as this is their attempt at a repair for the 6th time. They want me to hang it over the edge while I am trolling and see if that changes anything and go from there. I did notice something new though, after getting my unit back I tried to mark a waypoint and it gives you the normal warning about not being able to mark to the navionics card blah blah blah and it says it saved the waypoints but never did and I only had 65 waypoints in the unit. luckily I had a spare sd card on the boat and inserted that and it works again but now saves them to the card. Sorry a bit off topic just thought it was interesting after the last update.  I will try the new ducer and see what they have to say.

ITGEEK,
 I am in the puget sound of washington state. Although we do get choppy water from time to time it usually isn't any rougher than a med lake, and if it is we aren't fishing. We don't get big sea swell like they do offshore in here.

[rnvinc]

Try the new xducer HB sent you to see if it makes any difference in your depth stability ...
-----
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Waypoints are written directly to the unit internal memory ...
Screenshots are written directly to a SD Card ...

If Screenshots are Enabled under the Accessories tab in the Main Menu System ...the unit tries to write a screenshot to a SD Card at the same that the unit tries to write a waypoint to the internal memory (2 simultaneous tasks with 1 "Mark" button press) ...

If there is only a map card in the unit ... The unit warns it cannot write to the map card ...

If there are no cards in the unit (map or blank) ... The unit says it saved a waypoint ... But doesn't ... Because there is no SD Card in the slot to complete the matching task of writing a Screenshot to a SD Card ...

Either disable Screenshots under the Accessories tab in the Main Menu System ...
Or insert a blank SD Card to write screenshots to ...

Rickie

[matt72580]

Thanks RNVINC for the info, I received the transducer on friday and tested it out this weekend with no difference in results. I changed all of my settings as it was suggested and seem to be able to hold bottom to around 250ft, The next thing I was thinking is maybe going to a deep water 1kw transducer. An Airmar TM258 and then the humminbird transducer switch. What I hope to gain is when I am fishing out in the deeper water up to 800 ft I wont lose my readings. Not necessarily concerned about seeing whats on the bottom, more of whats in the water column down to about 120ft, but as it is now if I go over 250-300ft I lose everything, no image at all and the sounder says 1ft and garbled image.  Does anyone think this will help?

[rnvinc]

Unfortunately I have no experience with the 1kw xducers ...

Did the Dual Beam setting have any effect on your deep water issue ... ??

This would shut off the SI transmitters ..allowing more frequent pings to the 2d piezo (where the digital depth is derived from) ...

Rickie

[matt72580]

RNVINC,
 The settings changes did help a little with the unit hold an image when it had one and didn't have to restart it to get the image back, however it still won't read much more than 300ft. It's really frustrating as I know it is capable, When it was new I didn't have much problem marking around 500ft when I was shrimping, but I had to restart the unit multiple times a day if it did lose a reading. Humminbird has an Engineer analyzing the pictures and video I sent them. I guess I will wait and see what they have to say.

[matt72580]

Well the saga continues, grrr. Been talking to and sending humminbird info for the last week and it actually seems like they are working to try and figure this out. They are shipping out a XNT 9 DB 74 T extreme depth transducer and y cable to see if that helps at all. I will get that mounted up as soon as it arrives and we will go from there. I believe this should give better depth readings at speed as well.

[rnvinc]

Well the saga continues, grrr. Been talking to and sending humminbird info for the last week and it actually seems like they are working to try and figure this out. They are shipping out a XNT 9 DB 74 T extreme depth transducer and y cable to see if that helps at all. I will get that mounted up as soon as it arrives and we will go from there. I believe this should give better depth readings at speed as well.

I look forward to your results ... Please post when you have info ...

Rickie