898 SI Question...

[DoubleGobble00]

First off, I must say this 898 is the best thing I have EVER bought. It is worth its weight in gold. I do however have a question. In shallow water the normal depth finder view is pretty much blacked out down to 5 feet. I have mainly fished shallow water so far but it would be nice to have this fixed. What do you think is causing it? I thought it was the trolling motor interference but it is there whether the trolling motor is on or off. HB sent me a trolling motor choke but it has little wires (maybe 12 gauge) to connect to my 6 gauge (wires ran to battery) or 10 gauge wire on trolling motor. I am not a real big fan of splicing wires to my trolling motor which could reduce my trolling time. What do yall think?



Also, when using side scan the right side is sometimes real dark. Esp in shallow water. I believe this is due to me sitting on the right side of the boat when driving and the boat leaning to the right side. I could adjust the transducer but then when I have a passenger it would level the boat out more. What ya think... It is worse in shallow water since the angle of the SI does can not travel far before it hits the bottom. In deep water you can hardly notice it.





DoubleG

[TN Hillbilly]

Turn down surface clutter in the sonar menu. Not sure what's happening in SI. Are you sure nothing on the boat is obstructing the transducer view?

[PanMan_VA]

Set Switchfire to clear mode to get the surface clutter to go away.

[DoubleGobble00]

I didn't know there was a surface clutter settings. I will have to look for that. I am not sure which switchfire mode I am in.. but I believe I am in clear mode. I know I am not in max mode. I will double check them tonight.

I am pretty sure there are not obstructions. As long as my motor is not trimmed all the way down there should be no obstructions to the side. The transducer is mounted on the left side of the boat (if facing the back of the boat looking at the motor). I have an old transducer already mounted on the right side of the boat. I don't think it is in the way.

Here is another picture that does not show the dark image on the right:


DoubleG

[TN Hillbilly]

You might try removing the old transducer just as a test. In that pic you just posted it looks like there is a fairly solid line in the clutter in the water column. That's probably the transducer. When in shallow water, the line of sight of the transducer more parallel to the water surface comes more into play in gathering the data for the image. Looks like you're in clear mode to me just judging from what I see on my unit. Surface clutter default is 5 so turning it down should clear up the 2d sonar. You're images look pretty well noise free to me.

[DoubleGobble00]

Thanks TN... You know.. Come to think of it more. That transducer might be in the way. It is not in the way when the boat is level since I mounted the SI transducer lower than the old transducer. But... I didn't mount it that much lower. With my big rear end on the right side of the boat, that is problem enough lean to make them parallel or the old transducer might even be lower than the SI when it is just me in the boat. My boat is aluminum so it leans to one side more drastically than a glass boat.

When you turn the surface clutter down, does that just affect the surface? It won't mess up my SI will it? I got that baby fine tuned right now and just want to make sure it won't change it.

DoubleG

[TN Hillbilly]

Surface clutter setting won't affect SI. As far as I can tell from my experience it might reduce the 2d sonar sensitivity by a bit but not enough to matter to me. Good luck.

[FAADAN]

Try sitting in the center of the boat and see what you get.

[DoubleGobble00]

Thanks TN

Yeah it gets much better when I either have a passenger in the boat or sit in the middle or to the left side of the boat. So I believe the boat leaning to the right and the old transducer might be my problem. I will experiment a little more.

Anybody else have trouble like the first picture? I hope turning down the surface clutter will fix that.

DoubleG

[Allan]

Thanks TN... You know.. Come to think of it more. That transducer might be in the way. It is not in the way when the boat is level since I mounted the SI transducer lower than the old transducer. But... I didn't mount it that much lower. With my big rear end on the right side of the boat, that is problem enough lean to make them parallel or the old transducer might even be lower than the SI when it is just me in the boat. My boat is aluminum so it leans to one side more drastically than a glass boat.

When you turn the surface clutter down, does that just affect the surface? It won't mess up my SI will it? I got that baby fine tuned right now and just want to make sure it won't change it.

DoubleG

Since both transducers are fixed, when the boat tilts or leans it wont change the relationship the ducers have to each other. In others words if it can see past the original transducer when the boat is level, then it can see past it when the boat leans.