Help with Hds-7 Tweaking

[sunnycoastfisho]

Hi to All
This is my first post ,so be gentle with me.http://www.ausfish.com.au/vforum/../yabbfiles/Templates/Forum/default/Original%20Smilies/grin.gif My query is, just set up hds -7 in my boat and turned it on but it said the depth with the boat on the trailer was 2m when it was really more like .5m this was with it set on general fishing it also had a lot of clutter on the screen. I changed the fishing mode to fresh water and this cleaned up the clutter but it still read 2m. I thought this was because it was out of the water so i put a bucket of water under the transducer which changed the depth to .8m which is still a bit out as the real depth was .5m my old sounder was a x67 which seemed to read true on the trailer. The new transducer is a 50-200w and the sounder was set on 200w . Was wondering if any one knows if this is because the new transducer is more powerful than the old sounders and is just bouncing the signal a bit, or is the transducer faulty,or is there any tweaking I could do to help, have set the model of transducer in the transducer setup.Maybe I just to get it on the water. Any help would be much appreciatedhttp://www.ausfish.com.au/vforum/../yabbfiles/Templates/Forum/default/Original%20Smilies/embarassed.gif

Ps sorry posted this Q in the wrong forum earlier

[trueblue]

try it in the water - my sounder goes nuts if not in water

[sunnycoastfisho]

Thanks trueblue
thought I was being paranoid

[leelee]

Hi to All
This is my first post ,so be gentle with me. My query is, just set up hds -7 in my boat and turned it on but it said the depth with the boat on the trailer was 2m when it was really more like .5m this was with it set on general fishing it also had a lot of clutter on the screen. I changed the fishing mode to fresh water and this cleaned up the clutter but it still read 2m. I thought this was because it was out of the water so i put a bucket of water under the transducer which changed the depth to .8m which is still a bit out as the real depth was .5m my old sounder was a x67 which seemed to read true on the trailer. The new transducer is a 50-200w and the sounder was set on 200w . Was wondering if any one knows if this is because the new transducer is more powerful than the old sounders and is just bouncing the signal a bit, or is the transducer faulty,or is there any tweaking I could do to help, have set the model of transducer in the transducer setup.Maybe I just to get it on the water. Any help would be much appreciated

Ps sorry posted this Q in the wrong forum earlier

Like Trueblue said. Put the boat in the water. They go weird and haywire if not in water.

Best thing to do to calibrate your depth is put the boat in at the ramp, pull it up onto the beach and its should be pretty shallow at the back. Easy to measure depth of water then versus what’s being shown on the screen. Other then that the only real way is to drop line down with pre marked depths on the your line and make sure the line is straight up and down.

Normally though they are very accurate and need none or little adjustment.

Cheers

Lee

[Moonlighter]

When you do what Lee has suggested, make sure you put the fishing mode to "shallow water" first and you may still need to adjust the sensitivity way down to get a decent picture in only a couple of feet of water.

The HDS are very powerful units like you said, and in shallow water like that, at normal sunsitivity settings, may just give you a screen full of clutter. So be prepared to back the sensitivity off quite a bit.

As both the guys indicated, transducers do not work out of the water and some people say that its not actually good to run them for too long out of the water.

Your old X67 showing what appeared to be the "correct" depth was probably just complete luck.

Once youve got it in the water you can, if you like, adjust the "keel offset" so that the sounder then shows the depth of water beneath your keel. You should find that option in the sonar settings menu, I think under the transducer setup sub-menu.

I've never bothered to do that - mainly its a feature useful on larger inboard/non-planing hulls to help prevent them running aground and ripping the prop and propshaft out of the boat! In a typical planning runabout, I'm not sure how useful it is because the depth under your keel will vary depending on whether you are on or off the plane.

Cheers

ML

[sunnycoastfisho]

Thanks guys http://www.ausfish.com.au/vforum/images/icons/icon7.gif, will get out and try the different " fishing modes " and play with the sensitivity does anyone own one of these hds units a if so do you run it in manual mode, or one of the fishing modes. I mostly fish the shallow reefs from 10-30m, is number 13 the best colour pallet to get the best detail of bottom density and bait balls, ect

[La Vida]

first thing even before you put it into the water:

- press menu twice scroll down and select sounder options
- scroll down to advanced options
- select transducer type
- select HST-DFSBL 50/200 kHz

this is the best of memory when I set my HDS8 up

This way you have least let the HDS unit know exactly what transducer is fitted. then go put the boat in the water also look at youtube as there is heaps of videos[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-GITsqthFo]

I hope this helps

[sunnycoastfisho]

Guess I'll just have to get on the water and put in the hours. With this weather around looks like the snapper ban may have come early ? pretty hard to rack up 400t in this weather