597 ci HD down imaging

Quick question. A couple of years back I upgraded humminbirds from the 597 to a Helix 7 mega si gen 3. Had the dealer install the new one on the console and move the older one to the front of the boat thinking I’d use it up there. They hooked the transducer up to the terrova, but my depths are way inconsistent with what the helix reads. Anyways not a biggie since i hardly ever use it up there. What I was wondering is, could I move the 597 back to the console and use it for mapping only with chips? For that purpose, would i even need it hooked to a transducer? If a transducer is needed, could i use the same as the helix? Lots of questions I know, but have the day off work and thinking too much. Thanks!

You wouldn’t need a transducer if you’re going to run it as a dedicated mapping unit; just turn the sonar off.

One thing that I did as a trolling walleye guy is run my universal sonar line from the trolling motor to my nav unit at the console. When I troll I have a 18′ notification that things are getting deeper / more shallow than waiting to pick it up with the stern unit which has really helped minimize the big swings in depths with trolling.

OP may not ever read this but for future reference…

I did just this for two seasons of fishing with a 597, a Lakemaster chip and the sonar turned off. It worked great having just one screen for GPS.

Word of Warning: do not upgrade the firmware to the most current version if you plan on doing this. For some reason I thought it would be cool to have the round ice fishing display which is only available in the latest firmware version. Everything worked fine after the upgrade except for the ability of the unit to read Lakemaster chips. Humminbird to their credit worked on the problem for a long time and could not come up with an older firmware patch to go back to.