Lowrance gen3 hds7

[Evenweight]

So my Dad went for the hds7 with a 50/200 transducer. What settings do you find best for operating in the salt? Everything i can find is Bass orientated.

We'll be fishing Nootka Friday to Monday looking forward to seeing how chirp performs.

Richard

 

[Sir Reel]

I have a Lowrance Elite 5 with the similar transducer. Here is what Harbour Chandler said to do for settings on that unit.

the factory settings after a reset are sub-standard for West Coast saltwater use (Lowrance’s primary market are fresh water bass anglers). When viewing the sonar screen, press “Menu”, scroll down to settings, press enter and make sure “General use” is selected. Back on the sonar screen again, press Menu, select Auto Sensitivity and turn it off (no x in the box), scroll up to “Adjust” and set sensitivity to 81 (as a starting point). I adjust sensitivity on a daily basis as water salinity and algae/plankton blooms affect image quality. I aim to have a “salt and pepper” effect on the screen, turn sensitivity too low and you lose bottom and fish targets, too high and the screen is cluttered. Also switch over to 83khz for deeper water (over 100ft). Hope this helps.

 

[aheny]

I

I have a Lowrance Elite 5 with the similar transducer. Here is what Harbour Chandler said to do for settings on that unit.

the factory settings after a reset are sub-standard for West Coast saltwater use (Lowrance’s primary market are fresh water bass anglers). When viewing the sonar screen, press “Menu”, scroll down to settings, press enter and make sure “General use” is selected. Back on the sonar screen again, press Menu, select Auto Sensitivity and turn it off (no x in the box), scroll up to “Adjust” and set sensitivity to 81 (as a starting point). I adjust sensitivity on a daily basis as water salinity and algae/plankton blooms affect image quality. I aim to have a “salt and pepper” effect on the screen, turn sensitivity too low and you lose bottom and fish targets, too high and the screen is cluttered. Also switch over to 83khz for deeper water (over 100ft). Hope this helps.

I wouldn't say your 83/200 is all that similar. It's the 83 that is substandard (for bass fishermen)

I think you'd be impressed with a 50/200 compared to what you're using; especially if it's 600W+

 

[burnsy22]

Buy an Airmar P66 transducer, for $200 or whatever they cost, it is worth every penny compared to the stock transducer.

 

[Evenweight]

Well we fished for 4 1/2 days with the new unit. Had a great time and was able to play and tune the new sounder/ chart plotter. I think its a great unit and even better after I switched the transducer from the generic setting to the transducer that is actually plugged in to. As for Chirp. I didn't think it brought much to the table. Frankly I was expecting to get a side scan like downward view out of the sounder when turned to the CHIRP option.

So 9in review I think it is a great machine. So long as I haven't missed anything I don't think CHIRP made a difference in how we precieved the bottom structure or the copiouse amount of feed we were seeing on the sounder.

If someone knows better as to how to tune and Lowrance HDS Gen 3 and get a quantifiable result in saltwater that exceeds the 200khz standard please let me know.

Richard

 

[Tail-chaser]

Running a chirp ducer on high freq with a 25 degree cone will improve the picture vastly over the 50/200 or the p66

 

[burnsy22]

Yeah you need a specific CHIRP transducer to make the CHIRP function properly, and those run $1000 and up from what i was told.

 

[Tail-chaser]

If you want to pair the new hds gen 3 up with the best chirp ducer for fishing salmon/hali have a look at the new airmar tm 185c-hw. Its a 1kw transducer and has better overall performance for 0-300 feet with the high feq and wide angle cone over the older tm 260. I have it paired up with a hds gen3 and can tell you its way better for shallow water than the tm260 with the narrow cone.