Sounder help for a newbie

[blahblah]

Hope this is a suitable place to post.

We have 12'  folding boat and I recently rigged up a Lawrence Hook2 4x sounder.

Im getting pretty useless readings from it even when stationary with the motor off, can any experienced reader offer a possible fix?

Ive attached some examples

 

Thanks

 

 

 

Edited November 5, 2018 by blahblah

[zmk1962]

I guess Fishing Chat or Boating would both work for this question.

I'm not a user of that model sounder so please take my advice as generic. It looks like its showing way too much bottom. Picture 1 shows what would normally be a muddy or soft bottom but I've never seen a sounder dedicate that much screen realestate to the bottom  - its almost like its in some zoom setting ...  or in some demo mode. 

Picture 3 seems like its chopping and changing - giving you a normal reading for a few seconds then switching to some zoom mode .... or again in some demo mode.

If it was mine, I would read the manual and figure out how to do a RESET.   Get it back to a known starting position with all the settings --  then work my way through the settings one at a time, pick the options you think make sense for the type of boating you plan to do ... and then take it on the water -- that way you will be able to correlate what you see on the sounder with the settings you have selected.

Best of luck

Zoran

PS - It's not quite clear where your transducer is mounted.  Personally I only have issues with my sounder when I reverse as the prop throws bubbles under the transducer - going forward all should be good for quite some speed if the transducer is correctly set up... in my case mine is good > 60km/h. 

 

[rickmarlin62]

You have the depth set too deep for where u r reading  change depth to suit where u r sounding

[blahblah]

Thanks for your time guys. Ill look in to your suggestions.

Im pretty sure the unit was set in Auto. The manual says to leave it in auto unless you are an experienced sonar user, which isn't me. unless I accidentally changed the settings

 

[browncrab]

How is the transducer fitted to the boat?

[anthman]

In addition to the above, how far have you set the "hull depth" ? It's an amount of depth that the sounder offsets to account for where it's placed on the hull.

Was the depth 2.6m like the sounder says in the last pic? If so, then the hull depth setting could be your answer.

[Sea Ranger]

You are in the water when you took these pictures yes?

[blahblah]

Brown Crab - The transducer is on a bracket at the bottom of the transom. To the right of the motor. Ive moved the transducer around while stationary with no difference.

 

Anthman - I cant find an y mention of  hull depth settings. The water could well of been 2.6m. Muddy river so cant be sure.

 

Searanger - Yep in the water

 

cheers

 

 

 

[zmk1962]

Hey @blahblah I decided to check FR on my afternoon coffee break and see that you still haven't got to the bottom of this (sorry for the "sonar" pun). ... so decided to devote the rest of my coffee to your Hook2 4x...

Found the lowrance resource page here:

http://support.lowrance.com/system/selfservice.controller?CONFIGURATION=1001&PARTITION_ID=1&secureFlag=false&TIMEZONE_OFFSET=&CMD=VIEW_ARTICLE&ARTICLE_ID=4251

There it states:

Hook-4x GPS Reset Procedure: To restore the unit to default settings - go to Settings Menu/System/Restore Defaults.

Also found the Operation manual here:  

ftp://software.lowrance.com/Documents/Hook2-X-Series_OM_EN_988-11747-002_w.pdf

Chapt 6 is all about the sonar --  seems pretty standard operation wise so back to your pictures.  

---------

Some thoughts:

Can you please check that you have zoomed all the way out (I note that there are 2 buttons on the front of the unit that zoom in on a view).  I am wondering if you have actually zoomed in to look at the very bottom 1m of water between 5-6m and are stuck in that mode or you have somehow set your Range to just look at between 5-6m?

I am basing this on the fact that in all the photos, you are not seeing any surface and your screen shows 5 to 6m range ...

You should be seeing something like this -- note the surface "noise" and 0 at the surface (not 5 as in your case):

If zooming out with the buttons doesn't do it, you will need to go to settings,  turn off Auto - go into Custom and check the Range - which should itself be set to Auto.

I note that in picture 2 and 3, you have those purple vertical bands - the top and bottom of which have a numeral 3 - its curious that all purple bands have these 3's regardless of what else is going on in sounder. It seems like the unit is trying to show  you something at the 3m depth - but being stuck to look at only between 5-6m it may be creating this strange effect on the screen. In this picture  you clearly see the 5-6, 3-3, 5-6, 3-3.  This tells me the unit is confused with what its been asked to do.

Anyway, give the Zoom Out or Custom>Range>Auto a go. 

Personally, as I said previously, I'd Reset the unit to Default Settings ... and that way any tinkering would be gone and you'd be starting with a fresh sounder that should completely reflect and behave as you see in the manual. If you took it back to Lowrance or the dealer - the first thing they would do is the Reset.

Hope that helps.

Cheers Zoran

 

Edited November 8, 2018 by zmk1962

[blahblah]

Zoran

I feel honoured and grateful you devoted the rest of your coffee break to me and my sounder, Thank you very much indeed!

What you say makes a lot of sense and resetting back to factory settings is likely my best bet. The Hook2 4x sells itself as the easiest sounder to use so I agree, I need to get back to original settings.

I'll report back when I have the boat out at Noosa in a couple of weeks.

Thanks again everyone.

[blahblah]

Just for anyone else who finds themselves in this position the reset worked well.

 

Cheers all

[zmk1962]

Hey @blahblah thanks for posting back - glad it’s sorted. Enjoy. 

Cheers Zoran