Testing sounder at home before fishing??

[Dogtoooth]

How do you check to see that your sounder is working at home without damaging the transducer before going fishing???, any help cheer's.

[JulianDeMarchi]

How do you check to see that your sounder is working at home without damaging the transducer before going fishing???, any help cheer's.

Turn it on and if it detects the tranny, you're good to go. Other then that to determine if the tranny is working correctly, you need to have the boat in water otherwise all you can test is the temp readings...

[rayken1938]

Piece of wet glass held to the transducer will read the distance to the ground.
Cheers
Ray

[scottar]

It will depend on whether or not the surface below the boat will reflect sufficent sound to show a return on the screen. If the boat is on smooth concrete you are in with half a chance. If it's on the grass or dirt in the back yard don't even bother trying. To get an echo in air the transducer angle needs to be almost spot on parallel to the ground, the gain or sensitivity will typically need to be fully up and the distance between the transducer and the ground can't be much more typically than a couple of feet. An air gap of about a foot will return an echo at about 6 feet on the sounder screen.

The other thing you can do is rub the face of the transducer while the unit is on with the gain up - should show noise on the screen. This only tests that the receiver is "hearing". Doesn't test the transmitter.

On a final note - there are some transducers that don't like running out of water for long periods - notably the new chirp type units or anything with a high power output.