Topic: I need help or clarification

[ffmedic147]

I have had my 998 going on 2 years now and still am having trouble. I recently updated it and went out today and TRIED to figure it out. I am just about to give up. For example I know where some brush piles are in about 18 foot of water so i figured I would go to them graph them and try to see if the new update helped. So went to one brush pile went right over top of it and i could see it on the si in the black water column like i thought its suppose to. I then went 10 to 15 feet off of it and tried to see if i could see it. with many passes and many adjustments I just cant see it. I started on factory setting except for the width, it was at 50. But with many passes I changed the setting on everything. width, sensitivity, contrast, etc. Still I can not see it. This happens alot. What can I do or am i Asking to much? I just cant get the quality I thought I could get.

[George]

ffmedic

I had some of the same issues, initially I had some pretty good pics but as time went on I wondered from the proper setting and I was not getting the clean pictures.  Recently I went to to Doug Vahrenberg's site, he has a 9 part seminar on how to get the most out of the HB units, I think that if you be patient and review the videos they will get you back to the basics (it helped me).  Scroll down towards the bottom for the videos (all the videos are good but start with these).

---> http://www.dougvahrenberg.com/Videos.html <---

George

[LocDown]

adjust your chart speed to your boat speed. then start adjusting sensitivity

[rnvinc]

Try also setting the SI to 1 side only ( left or right )...it zooms the image up making the brush image bigger...

Try different color palletes too... I like blue or amber 1...

Rickie

[stillbear]

ffmedic147 Yes without a doubt SI is outstanding when it comes to finding objects. I believe a lot of people think
they should be seeing bigger and better images of whats under the boat.When i am searching for whatever I will
set my SI beams to 80 ft. wide speed@ 1.4-2.0 mph if something interests me i will throw a buoy right or left  turn around an switch to sonar.When I find the object with 2-D I will go over it at different angles to get a good mental picture of what
it is. If it a laydown i might make couple different passes at search speed again with the SI beam.At that time I will determine
weather to Snapshot it or just mark it as a waypoint or ignore it. However if i am returning to a known brush pile especially
a small one I will use go to button on waypoints. From my charts screen when i arrive I will mark with buoy an switch to Sonar so i can locate an stay on it. Hope this might help you. Starting with default setting is pretty good.Key to good images slow straight steady speeds and use different angles of attact.  Gary

[rnvinc]

Brushpiles can be very difficult to ascertain on the SI image..

Brush is fairly easy to spot when against the sharp contrast of the black water column background...

Older brushpiles just do not show up very well when off to the side of the water column on the screen...

Making recordings and viewing them on Humviewer allows time to really study the images to "train" one's eyes to spot brush...(or more importantly... To spot the shadows created by brush)...

Rickie

[Colt45]

Some objects just show up better than others.  Seems like 'hard' objects show up better than 'soft' ones.  I had real difficulty spotting lobster and/or crab traps in 6-10 ft of crystal clear water.  I could see them visually but not on either SI nor Sonar.  Yet small rocks and sea fans showed up great.  The traps were made of wooden slats and about 2ft x 2ft x 2ft