Humminbird problems

I have two Humminbird fish finders. One bought at BPS recenty. One bought on Craiglist recently. Both are not working. I will try this and see if I can get some advise on the first one and then might bug you on the second.

Humminbird 170-Purchased at BPS, installed on my trolling motor in the last two weeks by a gentleman that has forgotten more about mechanics and electricity than most will ever know. In other words, a sharp dude with a tremendous aptitude. When unit is powered up, it immediately says "Transducer not connected" although you can clearly follow the lead from the end of the trolling motor to the back of the unit. It is secured snuggly into its proper slot in the back of the finder. When I hit the left arrow, it goes into start up mode and the temperature shows 99 degrees and the depth shows 0 ft. That's it... Any ideas?

Thanks for any advise!

Check the cord for bad spots? Try another transducer?

are you trying this with the boat at the house on the trailer,or with the boat in the water?it needs to be in the water for the transducer to read correctly!!!!

If it says not connected my guess is you got a bad transducer, if your craigslist one has the same transducer plug it in and see if you get the same results. When there out of the water they will give crazy readings, mine on the back of the boat says 16' when sitting in the driveway and it can't be more then 18". If you bought it at BPS you can take the unit back in and they can plug it up and check it for you I would take the head unit and transducer in - that way they could check both.

Even if the transducer isn't in the water the head unit should recognize the transducer (if it's good). I had a unit with a bad GPS plug once. Prong was broken off the male plug. Humminbird replaced the Receiver, no questions asked. If the thing is good you should get a temp reading though. I'd say it's a transducer problem. You either got a bad 1 or something happened to it during installation. If it's a dual beam transducer check & see if there are 3 prongs on the male plug. Those little prongs can get broken off pretty easy.

As far as the transducer giving you a depth reading when it is out of the water... That ain't gonna happen hookum. The signal will not travel thru air. It's gotta be in the water. So the reading you're get'n is just a random reading.

Like the guys have said: try it with another Humminbird transducer. Sounds like the temperature sensor is not reading or there is damage to the cable (it happens to the best of us). If you can't do that; see if BPS will swap it out or call the Humminbird Customer Resource folks at 1-800-633-1468.