Lowrance sounder oddity

[GreyNurse]

Even though this happened on my kayak, I thought it might be more appropriate to post this in the boating section.

As I mentioned in my Tuross Lake report, I had a small issue with my Lowrance Elite 4x. When I was over a deep hole, I turned on the sounder, set the range for 15 feet and was concerned at what I was seeing. As I was motoring over 12 feet of water, the bottom would intermittently drop away and the depth reading would flash 4 or 5 feet. Then the bottom would return to the screen and I would get a 12 foot read again. I finally set the depth for 40 feet and it would appear that if I went over any more than 30 feet, the bottom would remain on screen, but the depth indicator would flash 5 feet or less. As this only happened in the one deep part of the lake I navigated, I just took note of the issue and continued on. The sounder worked fine everywhere else where the water depth ranged from 1.5 feet to 15 feet.

The transducer is a thru the hull mount, rolled into position to eliminate air bubbles in the Selley's all clear sealant, although I made the mistake of facing it the wrong way. Still, it worked fine for the majority of the time. It showed bottom structure, and possibly fish, although there was a lot of fresh water bringing down detritus, which could also be what I was seeing on the bottom. So, any ideas? Might there be a fault or just an one off oddity?
The other interesting observation was that in 10 feet plus of water, there was a faint, continuous static line across the screen at the 6-8 foot mark.

It looked a bit like this: II II III III I III III I.

Could this have been a thermocline?

I'm sorry now that I didn't take any pictures, but in bright sunlight, my phone's screen washes out, unlike the fine screen on the Lowrance.

Any replies are most welcome.

[Linc]

I've had similar issues with both Lowrance and Simrad units now and both times it was a case of a simple software update to fix the problem. Check the lowrance website for any software updates for your system and follow the instructions - hopefully this helps as I know how bloody frustrating it is when the sounder doesn't tell you the truth!

[GreyNurse]

Thanks for the advice mate, but there's no software updates available for that model. It'd have to be sent to Lowrance if there was an update as it's your basic fishfinder, albeit, a good one, IMO. It's the model before they introduced the DSI, but at $199, I'm not complaining, just curious.

[Linc]

oh bugger, i'm not of much help then Good luck with finding out the problem

[Paikea]

I find that the current instruction manuals are not that easy to follow. By contrast the manual from my earlier LCX-37C Lowrance was superb. More than 220 pages of step by step info.

The problem with brief instructions is that you don't know whether you are doing something wrong or the unit is at fault. Very frustrating for someone who has to get the grandkids to programme the TV remote. Very embarrassing but I bet that there are other Raiders of my generation who have the same problems?

I ended up buying a 12V power supply and extra power cable for my Elite 7 - HDI and spent a day entering waypoints, doing simulations and the like. I then wrote simplified instructions on an A4 sheet, had it plasticised and keep that in the boat for reference.

There are only a limited number of functions that I will ever use so it was relatively to select and list them once I got the hang of using them. .

Cheers

Paikea

[GreyNurse]

Holy Menus Paikea!

You are right. I went back over the manual for the Elite 4x and discovered a couple of things. One of those was that it stated that under Fishing Mode, of all things is the following warning. "Note: Use fresh water mode when fishing in less than 100 feet of water; otherwise your unit may not track bottom properly." Would have been handy at least repeating that warning under Depth Mode. OK, so I'll try Fresh Water mode next time and see what happens.

The other interesting thing I discovered was the hidden overlay menu. I initially thought that all I had was depth and water temp. I couldn't seem to find anything else despite selecting Add. Then, while I was playing around in the menu, I removed the water temp, then selected add to put it back, and a whole range of overlay choices appeared! I reselected temp, but added speed and battery voltage as well! Yeah, it's a bit cluttered on the little 320 x 240 3.5" screen, but I'll learn to live with it.

Finally, I found the temp calibration menu. If I'm right, I should be able to calibrate the temp reading from the thru the hull mount to achieve a realistic water temperature. At least, I hope that that it what it is there for.

I'll follow up all these "fixes" with a future post. I'm going out Wednesday with fellow Raider Witha. Hell, I might even catch a few fish!

[Linc]

lets hope the freshwater mode helps. I'm not sure how you'd get a realistic temp through the hull though??

[nanman]

...I ended up buying a 12V power supply and extra power cable for my Elite 7 - HDI and spent a day entering waypoints, doing simulations and the like.

Paikea

How interesting.. I have the Elite 7 -HDI and I've bought an extra power cable as well. Only other option was to sit on the boat and key in the waypoints. It's a shame these cant be connected to a PC to load & edit things like waypoints, trails etc. Apart from that its a great unit to have.

I have also set it to freshwater mode as I only use it in bays & estuaries where I haven't seen more than 25m of water.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Billy2014]

For anyone interested, I have an elite 7 HDI and also use Garmins map source software on my PC. You can spend all the time you need loading waypoints on you're computer using mapsource, save the file as gpx format then convert file to udp, copy to a micro sd card, load into lowrance, go to waypoints and load from card, done! You can also go back the other way, save to card from lowrance unit, convert udp file to gpx then load into mapsource. This has saved me hours of stuffing around. If anyone would like proper instructions please let me know, I'm happy to pass on. Sorry don't have all the info here, typing on my tablet at the moment.

Cheers,

Bill.

Edited June 1, 2014 by Billy2014

[Linc]

For anyone interested, I have an elite 7 HDI and also use Garmins map source software on my PC. You can spend all the time you need loading waypoints on you're computer using mapsource, save the file as gpx format then convert file to udp, copy to a micro sd card, load into lowrance, go to waypoints and load from card, done! You can also go back the other way, save to card from lowrance unit, convert udp file to gpx then load into mapsource. This has saved me hours of stuffing around. If anyone would like proper instructions please let me know, I'm happy to pass on. Sorry don't have all the info here, typing on my tablet at the moment.

Cheers,

Bill.

That sounds good, I wonder if Simrad has a similar thing, off to check their site now.

[Billy2014]

If you can get the GPS coordinates to save as gpx files then it should be easy, I use Mapsource from Garmin because I have it already. Sorry, I made an error in the previous post, 'winging it' Lowrance format files are usr files NOT udp!

• To convert gpx to usr files you can use the Lowrance GPX to USR Geocaching Utility
• To convert usr to gpx files you can use GPSBabel I am using version 1.5.1 and it works perfectly.

If you do a Google search on above you will find the downloads. Just a note, Mapsource Garmin native files are gdb files, you basically do a 'save as' to gpx.

Cheers,

Bill.

[MV Sunray]

Once you have converted the files you can also use Google Earth to manage/edit/view your waypoints and tracks.

Handy for adding waypoints using the satellite images.

Cheers.