HDS 5 Gen 1 Transducer and Chip Question

A couple of questions –

I’ve been losing bottom both when moving and sitting still with my HDS 5 Gen 1. Sometimes I can turn the unit off and back on a minute later and the HDS works fine. Sometimes it doesn’t fix the problem. I have the correct transducer selected in the set up. I’ve set up a number of transducers and am sure it is level (side to side) and pointing straight down to slightly forward.

Anyone know if this is typical of the transducer going bad and time to replace it?

Secondly, I have heard that Lowrance has a new chip out – the Lake Insight PRO 2012 for $99.

Anyone used it yet? How do you like it?

Thanks for the info.

Maybe you can try your head unit on a friends boat.
Try his head unit on your boat.
See if the problem stays with your transducer.

I have had Lowrance transducers “go bad” and yours does sound as if it may be goin’.

Thanks JDP.

That’s a great idea and I do know someone I can try this with. It may be a while till I get around to trying but I will be sure to post the results.

So I think I figured out the transducer problem –

I turned off the auto sensitivity and manually set it to 65%. Then I set the depth to 30 feet. Ping is set to max and both clarity and noise rejection are set to low. I have the transducer set to 200kHz.

I fished everywhere between 10 – 25 feet of water dragging leeches around. The screen was a bit peppered when I was in 10 feet but cleared up when I went deeper. The unit never lost bottom and worked the entire time I was out. I then set the depth to 40 feet, bumped the sensitivity up to 75% and pulled leadcore in about 30 feet of water for a while. Again the transducer never lost bottom.

Hopefully the auto sensitivity was the issue.

btw – it was really windy out and the boat (and me) were getting banged around pretty good but the fish were biting so I stayed out there messing around with the HDS depth finder till I got it to hold the bottom.

Keep workin’ with it.
You may even want to take written note
of your settings to save time in the future.

Dont forget about Navionics Mapping, they have added a bunch HD 1′ contour lakes and are adding more weekly. ANd if you own a Navionics Hotmaps Premium or Platinum you can get free map upgrade downloads for a year thru a program called Freshest Data and User Generated Content http://www.navionics.com/lakes/index.html