Bad Fish Finder or Bad Transducer? (or just bad luck!)

[wx_nut]

I swear I have the worst luck. :-)

I was out this last weekend, and I went to use my fishfinder (Lowrance X51), and 'lo and behold, it's not working. All it is doing is giving me the temp of the water, and giving me nothing on the depth.

I also have an Eagle FishMark 160, and it is doing the same thing. We went and tried the FishMark on my buddies boat, it did the same thing at all...gave the temperature and gave the depth of 0.0 feet. So, we tried the X51 on his boat and it worked. Now, all of a sudden, neither fishfinder is working. I went and checked the transducer, and it's doing it's clicking noise just fine.

What I have done:

Taken the Eagle FishMark 160 and tried it on two transducers (both transducers appear to be the correct one) and it shows up as 0.0ft and a big solid line as the bottom.

Taken the Lowrance x51 and used it on my buddies boat (Worked just fine) and used it on my boat (worked fine for a while, and now just stopped working) I have not tried it on another transducer.

I have traced the cable on the transducer, there are no kinks, no physical damage I can find. I did check the angle, it appears to be correct. When I stick my head up to it, I can hear it clicking.

On my boat, I have a HST-WSX Wide Angle Transducer.

When I went to Gander, the guy recommended that I take some chap stick or something like that and put just a little on the connectors as that may be the issue with it not getting a good connection. I have not tried this yet.

Did I

a) Fry BOTH fishfinders

The FishMark160 is just bad, and I need to deal with it, and the Lowrance one going bad is just my atypical bad luck?

c) I have a bad transducer, and one of them working and then not working is just a great stroke of luck?

d) Do I convince the CP that I need the $350 to buy a new Fishfinder and transducer?

e) Just find and buy a new transducer. (Went to Gander, they were all out of transducers for either one)

Thanks for all the help, again. :-)

[dan2957]

It could be that your transducer cables need to be run in a differant place on your boat. The signal may be getting some interferance and that is why you are not getting a reading. I had a Humming Bird that had a similar problem. The screen would go blank when I used my trolling motor. This did not occure all the time however. It was a intermitant thing.

You may be able to get a free manual from the manufactures HSOforum. I know humming bird will let you print a copy of a munaul for whatever unit you have.