TenMile
Well-Known Member
Hey guys,
Pulling the boat out of the water this weekend for some cleaning and maintenance and one of the things I am going to take a look at is my Lowrance Transducer.
I have the HDS-10 Gen-1 unit with the stock transom mounted transducer, plus Sidescan. I have the two units mounted to my transom, affixed to a 1/2" Starboard sheet. Love the Sidescan -- unit works great for both seeing structure and marking bait balls.
The Sonar unit has really not worked right since I've installed it. The unit I have is the stock transom mounted unit which I believe is the 83/200Khz unit. I find that the unit rarely if ever marks fish -- I almost never see fish arches, rarely see bait balls (although the sidescan shows them) and the unit has a very hard time keeping a lock on the bottom when the depth gets over 100' (Sidescan has no issue). Once the depth is beyond 150' I can pretty well forget about seeing bottom at all.
The unit is below a large swimstep, so it's impossible for me to see and adjust when the boat is in the water.
The Sidescan and skimmer transducers are about 3" apart. There is room to further separate them so they could be roughly 6" apart but given that the Sidescan and regular sonar are supposed to work together and are on different frequencies I don't believe they interfere. I've followed the recommendations from Lowrance and I have the Sidescan installed below the skimmer, closer to the engine.
Here is a photo of the installation (note that the 3rd transducer -- furthest left -- is no longer there).
Here's my plan for the weekend while the boat is out of the water:
- check to make sure the unit has not kicked up and is level
- make sure the unit is clean, and if slimy with growth will bottom paint with proper paint (there is a Westmarine product)
- consider remounting unit -- increase separation or locate further from trim tab?
Then, after I've done the above -- I will set it up following the steps recommended in the SaltPatrol video and will look to upgrade the unit to the most current firmware version: http://saltpatrol.com/resources/videos/ -- see bottom of list. I've done this once already but have screwed with the Sonar so many times, I will start from scratch once again.
Aside from buying a 1000W unit -- can anyone recommend any changes I can make to my existing unit to improve it?
Pulling the boat out of the water this weekend for some cleaning and maintenance and one of the things I am going to take a look at is my Lowrance Transducer.
I have the HDS-10 Gen-1 unit with the stock transom mounted transducer, plus Sidescan. I have the two units mounted to my transom, affixed to a 1/2" Starboard sheet. Love the Sidescan -- unit works great for both seeing structure and marking bait balls.
The Sonar unit has really not worked right since I've installed it. The unit I have is the stock transom mounted unit which I believe is the 83/200Khz unit. I find that the unit rarely if ever marks fish -- I almost never see fish arches, rarely see bait balls (although the sidescan shows them) and the unit has a very hard time keeping a lock on the bottom when the depth gets over 100' (Sidescan has no issue). Once the depth is beyond 150' I can pretty well forget about seeing bottom at all.
The unit is below a large swimstep, so it's impossible for me to see and adjust when the boat is in the water.
The Sidescan and skimmer transducers are about 3" apart. There is room to further separate them so they could be roughly 6" apart but given that the Sidescan and regular sonar are supposed to work together and are on different frequencies I don't believe they interfere. I've followed the recommendations from Lowrance and I have the Sidescan installed below the skimmer, closer to the engine.
Here is a photo of the installation (note that the 3rd transducer -- furthest left -- is no longer there).
Here's my plan for the weekend while the boat is out of the water:
- check to make sure the unit has not kicked up and is level
- make sure the unit is clean, and if slimy with growth will bottom paint with proper paint (there is a Westmarine product)
- consider remounting unit -- increase separation or locate further from trim tab?
Then, after I've done the above -- I will set it up following the steps recommended in the SaltPatrol video and will look to upgrade the unit to the most current firmware version: http://saltpatrol.com/resources/videos/ -- see bottom of list. I've done this once already but have screwed with the Sonar so many times, I will start from scratch once again.
Aside from buying a 1000W unit -- can anyone recommend any changes I can make to my existing unit to improve it?
