lowrance x87

[wmn luv me walleye fearme]

I picked up this unit to replace my old eagle (forget the model but the eagle cost me about 95 dollars 5 years ago) I;ve been having some issue getting the full arc on my finder. I spent about 2 hours on medicine lake messing around with it. It wonlt give me the arches I need to indentify the fish. It just shows slashes from left to right going up. I tried raising and lowering the transducer, messing with the grayline, and sensitivity. The only way i can get it to function is when i put the fish i.d. on and i take off the arches. It will show the picutres of fish. The bottom is well defined and i donlt hae much of a problem with that at all. Any ideas at all? I;m starting to wish I didn;t give away my old eagle.
thanks

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To be the man you have to beat the man....Wooooooooo

[Fisher Dave]

For the arch's to show correctly the transducer has to be at the right elevation and angle in the water, and be free of any interfearance(sp?). I had this problem in the past with a different unit and eventually learned that my transducer was too close to one of the ribs on the bottom of the boat. I moved the ducer and lowered it a hair and it works great now.

Sometimes you will only get 1/2 an arch on some locaters some of the time. Which way the arch is dictates weather the fish is in front, or behind the transducer. I have absolutely no trust in a fish ID feature on any graph. It takes some getting used to and adjustments, but in the end you will see alot more with the standard settings(arch's).

The 1st thing I would check before messing around too much is to see if the transducer is mounted near a rib, etc. Lowering your ducer could help also. I had one boat that the battery had actually concaved the bottom of the boat slightly .. in which caused all kinds of transducer troubles.

Good luck!

[wmn luv me walleye fearme]

Thanks for the advice dave
i went home last night and checked where the transducer is and it matched up with what the directions on the manual state (its also where my old eagle transducer was but who knows if that was working fine or if i saw imaginary fish the whole time) Its not by a rib or anything so i don;t know. I tried pointing it down more when i was in the water (was pretty much perfectly horizontal before ) but didnt seem to do much. Do you think I should still try moving it. I;m a little reluctant to start drilling more holes in the mount that i have but maybe its got to be done

[Fisher Dave]

If your sure its placed properly and should be reading correctly, I would keep playing with the settings to see what you come up with before sinking more screws.

If you look where your transducer is screwed in now, you may be able to drop it some just by pulling the top center screw. I believe that mount is 3 screws, with the 2 edge screws in channels(adjustable). You may not have to drill more holes to at least try to lower your ducer a hair if all else fails and see if it cures your problem. The empty hole could easily be sealed with silicone to test it out.

I would not ask anyone to drill more holes in their boat unless I was 100% positive it was the problem.. In this case theres no way to be absolutely certain, but it is likely. Who is to say there is nothing wrong with the ducer, or the unit itself has an attitude?

If it helps any, I do remember I used to set my grey line at about 2/3, and up my sensitivity to the point where I got interferance, and then backed it off a hair.. that was my *rule of thumb* with a few different lowrance units I have had. They are good units.. but I got spoiled with Zercom units.

[Guest]

when mine did that i found out that it was angled back too far, so I adjusted the transducer angle to correct it front to back. I have also heard of this happening with boats that sit at one angle and when trimmed out the angle has now changed causing your transducer only to pick up either the leading or trailing edge of the signal. Check out:
http://www.lowrance.com/Manuals/Files/skimmer_xdcr_0147-582_041703.pdf
on page 12 of this pdf file or on page 17 of your original x97 / x87 manual it will give a how to fix.

[Cooperman]

wmn luv me walleye fearme

when you get these long slashes going up from left to right, is the boat moving? If not, is there a difference in the arc's when you're moving?

[wmn luv me walleye fearme]

The arches slash left to right when I was out anchored. When I was moving I really couldn't get much of a mark at all but it seemed to read the bottom fine and give structure just not any arches. I;m heading up to winnie on sunday and getting a guide on the resort I;m staying at on sunday afternoon. (actually never have used a guide before but my friend's coming up from indiana to fish and the past 2 years he's come up we went to mille lacs 2 years ago and out to alexandria the year before and havfe done pretty crappy both times so for once i'd like to get on some fish when he;s out here) But maybe if I tipped the guy well he'd take a quick look at my finder and maybe he'd have a suggestion. I'll just make sure I'll bring some tools in case I have to pull it out of the water and drill a couple of different holes. I know without actually seeing it it's pretty tough to give advise on it
thanks

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To be the man you have to beat the man....Wooooooooo

[Guest]

Any locator will only show arches if the boat is moving over a stationary target(fish). These conditions need to be ideal. Make sure your sensitivity is up high enough(85%or higher)and the scroll speed is set properly. Turn the scroll speed up to max and then back it down one setting to 3/4. Also run the unit in split screen 2x zoom.

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