after we left 350 feet it would no longer read, is this because of the steep angle of the ledge. if so is there a way to fix it!!
19’ Key West CC 140 Johnson
16’ War Eagle 40 Yami
12’ Alumacraft 1954 Johnson 5.5
VOTE DEMOCRATIC ITS EASIER THAN GETTING A JOB!
Prob. b/c your transducer is not strong enough to read at those depths.
Turn the gain all the way up …
Take an Old Man Fishing Today!
Usually you have a 50/200 kHz transducer- in which case you need to change the settings to the narrower band(200) and you should be able to ping bottom to 500 + feet
George Carlin said it best, ‘Think of how stupid the average person is, and then realize that half of them are stupider than that’’.
JTM its a 540s gps and trany so i figured it would have no problem, and why wouldnt it read if i had both the 50 and the 200 setting on
19’ Key West CC 140 Johnson
16’ War Eagle 40 Yami
12’ Alumacraft 1954 Johnson 5.5
VOTE DEMOCRATIC ITS EASIER THAN GETTING A JOB!
Available power would be lost thru the 50. Set it to 200, manual gain, and turn it up. If the screen goes solid before you get a bottom reading, get another unit, that one doesn’t get it for you …
Take an Old Man Fishing Today!
that makes sense ill try that
19’ Key West CC 140 Johnson
16’ War Eagle 40 Yami
12’ Alumacraft 1954 Johnson 5.5
VOTE DEMOCRATIC ITS EASIER THAN GETTING A JOB!
Negative! Deeper water you need to use the lower frequency if you want to see bottom. A 600watt transducer will loose bottom at 200khz in about 300ft, while you should still get a bottom reading at 50khz out to about 500-600ft.
Bring on the 2-3 chop!
My Garmin quit reading last week @ 120 feet. We went to 400 ft and back. It started reading again at 120 ft. My problem is that it should change frequency automatically. I do have a solution for you though: Buy a Raymarine sonar and put it right beside the garmin. I use the garmin for chartplotter and raymarine for sonar. The Raymarine has an unbeleivable picture. Good Luck!
Cape Horn 24OS
twin 150 Optimax
Deeper water you need to use the lower frequency …
You are correct, sir, I had my rules reversed. Should have said ‘high depth number, low transducer setting’… 
Take an Old Man Fishing Today!
Yes, 50 for deep 200 for everything else. At 200 frequency, your transducer is sending and receiving more detailed information and will have a better more detailed picture. However, for depth you switch to 50 which narrows the transducer beam for more depth but less information.
I have the same issue with my 540s last year after I passed 650’. Thanks for the info
20’ Proline Sport
Put me anywhere up to and including 1 mile of Bin Laden with a clear line of sight… Bang Boom, wars over, the troops are coming home
Make sure your depth range is past your actual death. had my sounder set one time to only read to 75’ and once I passed that it was off the screen. Felt like an idiot when I realized problem