Topic: Viewing charts w/o transducer in water

[fishinmusician]

I have an 898 si and am planning a fishing trip in October to a lake that's 600 miles from my home.  I just ordered the relevant Navionics chip for the lake.

My question is, can I play around with my 898 and the chip at home while the sonar transducer is not in the water?  Years ago, I recall that you were to never turn on your sonar without the transducer in the water.

If not, then I will have to disconnect the tranducer wire from the quick-connect harness.  Thanks for any advice.

Dave

[mendota]

The short answer to your question is that you will not damage the unit.  You will probably want to purchase another power cable, rather than removing it from your boat.

The units' detect whether the transducer is connected, and turn off the sonar if not.

The bigger problem may be getting a map screen with no GPS receiver attached.  I believe if you select the Simulation mode at startup you can get around this.

The unit will default to Point-of-Sale mode if you select nothing on startup, with no sonar transducer or GPS receiver connected.  I'm not sure if the Nav chip will work in this mode.

[Wayne P.]

Yes, you can view mapping in the Simulator mode.
Yes, you can use the unit without the transducer in the water or disconnected.
You can also set the unit to be a GPS unit only by turning off the sonar.

[George]

Hi Dave

As stated you can view your Navionics' charts on your unit. 
There are a couple of options. 
As suggested I have an extra power cord to run my HB unit in the house. 
I use Navionics' NavPlanner which allows me to run the chip on my computer which is the best way for me.

BUT: you need to remember not to make any changes to the chip it could destroy the chip.

George

[fishinmusician]

Thanks to everyone for the helpful responses.

Dave

[reddog]

Dont forget to use the shaded depth feature when your viewing.  That alone will teach you more about the contours of your new lake than trying to read the contour lines.  Thats almost as important to me as the side imaging.  Shaded depth ROCKS!