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Humminbird Help Please

3K views 13 replies 6 participants last post by  sfw1960 
#1 ·
Have a new ranger with a Helix 9 and Onix 10. Have had no issues trolling for eyes up to 2.5mph or finding perch etc. For some reason when I went salmon fishing this weekend I was trolling 2.2-3.2 SOG on the graphs and all I was getting was static, Inteference, clutter, whatever the term may be. Vertical lines on the screen spaced out a little but constantly covering the screen. Same for sonar and DI. Couldn't even use the units to try and find fish.

Is it possible my kicker is causing interference at higher RPM and speed? Do I have a setting wrong? I don't get it, they worked amazing until this trip and 3 days with only being able to use my chart on my graphs.

All previous trips were on Erie up to 35 FOW, this one was in lake Michigan up to 150 FOW. Don't know if that contributes? It was picking up the bottom and depth fine just in between was useless

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#3 ·
With both units, which each have separate transducers.

I believe they're powered to batteries with online fuses. 99.9% sure

I was focused on fishing since it was my first DIY salmon trip, lots to keep an eye on and think about. But I had the kicker idled down going against the current and it was still doing it.

I'm not sure how it would be wiring /install since none of that has changed and I've had the boat on Erie 5 times and all was good with both units all those trips

I put a fish hawk on the boat, everything was good 2 trips since then but never used the cannon ball till this time. Could it be the cannon ball talking to the fish hawk? That's the only change besides the lake/depth. But I gotta believe a lot of guys run fish hawk cannon balls and fish finders...I'm also 99% sure the units looked the same before I even sent the fish hawk down

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#4 ·
I was having the EXACT same problem this weekend with my Lowrance on Lk MI. It signals fine on Erie, but when I went to deep water all I got was static and NO marks on the lake. Moved into the river, marked fish.... back out to lake... NOTHING. Tried setting a depth range and using the Auto feature... Nothing worked
 
#8 ·
I only use the 200khz setting while on plane or in shallower water (less than 50')

Normally I use 50khz with my unit, 83khz will work too.

I normally use auto high gain, may have to adjust your surface clarity and noise rejection. I don't have humminbird but, should be close.

I have a pic from last wknd, not the best. You can see one cannonball and some bait.
 
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#11 ·
Quick question... I know it would be nice to use two units at the same time but is it necessary? Even in my boat on the DR I get interference between the bow mount and the transom mount. I turn the sonar off on one of them if I want to leave them both powered up for one reason or another. Expensive units for them to not work great in all situations but it might give you the best picture of what's down there.
 
#12 ·
It works fine on Erie or inlands in shallow, I can run all 3.

I already figured out that I just use one sonar at a time to eliminate the interference. I like to use my transom full screen with sonar and my console full screen with my chart.

But now that the interference is gone I'm still not getting marks which I know isn't right, 3 days of blank screen is impossible especially with people around me marking. So I'm trying to work on settings to correct that now

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#14 ·
I generally network my units - that way you only have one 2D transmitter firing and NO cross talk between machines.

The 200KHz fires all the time on HB units regardless of menu setting and is used for digital depth.

The only time I separate the 2D from bow & stern is when I am contour trolling extreme break lines - even then I set the 2D to 83Khz for less interference to look at, but I usually have the SI and DI views onscreen in back.

If you don't want the additional cost to network units - you can always press power the button once and turn sonar OFF on one unit and use it as a Chart Plotter.

Cross talk is less likely in shallower water as the beam width is much smaller - deeper water is easily noticeable.
 
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