transducer

[dairyman]

is there a way to check out the transducer on a Humminbird 788ci. I've started getting erratic depth reading lately and I know I'm not in that deep of water....if I'm in 8 feet of water it will show 16-20 plus feet of water with fish below me............I run the unit on its own battery. I've run the unit self test and it says the unit is fine. Short of getting a new transducer I'm hoping there is a way to check it out

[TruthWalleyes]

Could you post a picture of how your trasducer is mounted?

Has it always worked properly before?

Typically the problem is the angle of the transducer is tipped too far forward or backward, causing increase depth readings because it's not directing sonar directly below the boat, but slightly in front of or behind the boat (a greater distance than directly below the boat).

What speeds are you having this problem? If on half plain, your boat and transducer will have an increased angle.

Not reading bottom correctly is usually dependent on the transducer mount. Also, is it possible that the transducer has shifted angles since the initial install?

[dairyman]

I went back out on the lake this morning and did a system restore to factory settings and that seemed to help. I also checked the transducer positioning and it appeared to be parallel with the bottom of the boat.

[TruthWalleyes]

Pay attention to what settings you change that might cause this goofy depth reading...There's always the possibility that the latest update can cause a bug under the right circumstances

[dairyman]

Oh geez----something else to worry about now

I did e-mail Humminbird with the problem --will see what they have to say

[gerty]

dairyman - I had problems with my new bird. Getting erratic readings when I was in shallow water. One tip that I got that seemed to work was to make sure your max depth setting is only set maybe double or triple of what depth you are actually in. I think the factory setting is 500 ft or some huge number. I guess the unit does not have to take as many readings this way and not check depths all the way down to that 500 ft depth. I am sorry if I did not explain this very well, but it worked for me. I have had no problems since making this change. I got the answer from another web site that has a specific forum for humminbird related questions. I did not get any straight answers when checking with humminbird directly. Just the "check your ducer", etc. standard response.

Truth - not saying that it won't help to check, but it wasn't the reason for my readings being bad.

[dairyman]

hey gerty----thanks for the tip I will check it out tommorow