Helix 9 question

[dean nelson]

So took out my new helix 9 and the thing seems messed up. It freaks out in less then about 6 feet of water and says it's in a foot or less. Also the side scan is just a blur everywhere. When I was out deep the sonar and down scan seemed alright but likely underestimating the depth by a couple feet or more. Just wondering if this is a bad unit or if there is a setting somewhere on it i need to adjust? Didn't have any problems like this with the 7 I had just before it so am little stumped.

 

[Sub_Elect]

It's a settings problem. Check the YouTube.

 

[Ericb]

There should be a setting to offset how deep the transducer is in the water. It would seem odd for it to be set so far of from the factory.

If you know someone with a similar unit try swapping heads to see if its the transducer or the unit.

 

[dean nelson]

Just went through it with a fine tooth comb and could not find any settings that would have caused it. Believe the power was turned down but will try one more time to see if playing with it helps. This is what it looked like in less then 6 feet.

 

[YATYAS]

That sucks. If your side scan is messed up as well then I bet it is a bad transducer. I would call HB and ask them to replace it.

 

[dean nelson]

It's only a few days old so it will be scheels that gets it if need be. Out deeper was better but in shallow first it would do this then it would start saying it was 15 feet or somthing similar. Did find this what I have to belive is a rock pile at around 4 feet tall.

 

[Sub_Elect]

Hmmm. Weird.

 

[Watchyourownbobber]

Wouldn't hurt to go on walleye central and post this question. Jason halfren on there is as good as they get for understanding bird electronics, and is usually pretty quick to offer up some help! Good luck!

 

[dean nelson]

Might try that. Found that humminbird has a chat forum for their side scans that has a ton of people on it so waiting for the Ok to post. Would have to believe they will know straight away if its a setting problem or the the ducer. Will say the auto chart live was fun to play with. You can see on the right as it got shallow it started reading deep thus the green. Anything below 5 is set for red. This is around 250 yards by 200 and took about a half hour at 2 mph with my slow motor.

 

[Ericb]

Just a thought but if it's on your little boat, could it be a lack of a barrier letting the signal bounce up and down? Not sure 100% on the technicals of how they work.

 

[dean nelson]

Can't say that's not a factor but the 7 didn't have the problem so one would think this one should be the same.

 

[shorthairsrus]

As in boat barrier? I have never heard that. 6 foot of water it looks like u have the sensitivity turned way up

 

[4Buck]

Make sure you have the Switch Fire set to clear mode that shallow.

 

[dean nelson]

Will check on that. Have to baby sit my dad till tomorrow so will drop the boat in the back yard and see what I can do to clean it up.

 

[revolutionz]

How close is the transducer to the prop? Could it be from prop wash? Is the transducer level in the water? Just a couple other things to check maybe. Hopefully you get it figured out, autochart live looks nice, looking forward to using it on mine.

 

[dean nelson]

Played with every power setting I could till it was so low it turned clear and it still when it hit 8 feet or less it starts reading a double bottom and shows ten feet deeper then it is. Needless to say if messes with auto chart live something fierce. So don't pay any attention to the near shore in the pic but the mapping is slick. This took about an hour and with a big boat and a sonar working right could have been done much quicker. But this is cottonwood lake in Bismarck.

 

[eyexer]

Garmin

 

[eyexer]

Haha some fricken sally gave me bad rep for saying "Garmin". Someday he'll get some fuzz on his nuts lol

 

[YATYAS]

Played with every power setting I could till it was so low it turned clear and it still when it hit 8 feet or less it starts reading a double bottom and shows ten feet deeper then it is. Needless to say if messes with auto chart live something fierce. So don't pay any attention to the near shore in the pic but the mapping is slick. This took about an hour and with a big boat and a sonar working right could have been done much quicker. But this is cottonwood lake in Bismarck.

What is the max depth setting on? If on auto or if the max depth is too high while shallow you will get the double return. The depth reading should still be correct though so can't explain the incorrect depth reading. How is the side scan compared to the results you initially posted?

 

[dean nelson]

I just ran the replay of one of my trips with the 7 and I took it into the one foot range and although it did tend to skip around a tuch it was in line with all normal graphs in that setting. Depth settings were all checked and no matter how I set it or turned down the strength it's still jumped deep as soon as I went shallow so I'm 99% convinced it's in the unit.....may even be in the head instead of the transducer on this one. A good example of its problem is the insanely deep hole half way up on the left side of the lake map it made.