HELP Garmin 430s sounder problems

[HighTechRedneck]

I have a garmin 430s sounder with a 200kz transducer. The problem I am having is when I fish lake michigan were the water is VERY clear. Generally in about 100 fow. The problem I have is inorder to see ANY marks I have to have the gain set to 100. the marks I do see are a very small black dot and very few of the. I do seem to mark the bottom fine but never see any hooks . Once in a while a mark always close to the surface never big marks down more than 40 feet. I have over 200 hours on the big pond this summer and I know the fish are down there because I am catching them but I dont see them on my graph when trolling at 2.5mph

I have talked to garmin at least 8 times.
I have replaced my transducer
I have repaced the head unit.
I am very good with electronics and have tried every setting and also tried leaving it on full auto.

Any one else experiance this?
Any suggestions?
The unit seems to work great in water less than 40 foot. is it just not powerfull enough???

Thanks in advance
HTR

 

[wpschaef]

Sonar

My understanding was that the 200kz signal was better for the deep water but a narrow cone of display. My other thought is that maybe you have your tranducer mounted in a spot where there is too much tubulence. Like right behind your livewell pickup or too close to the motor. Just thoughts, good luck.

 

[BigBird]

not an export

No expert but a few things i would check.
I am assuming your transducer is mounted to transom
1. align transducer angle with running water level-signal should go straight down. I had one misaligned and did strange things
2. clean bottom of transducer- I used alcohol-surface foam left a film on mine
3. reset options on sonar setup menu.
4. Are you able to turn off dual cone and go directly to narrow beam. Is your unit pushing unit to read in wide beam therefore not working well in deep water?
5. Is yours DF and able to change KHZ settings manually
6. If it were me I would isolate sonar to its own battery while troubleshooting, to exclude interference or other possible issues.
7. Check chart and ping speed levels to see if turned up?

Sorry if this is redundant-Let us know what you find out

 

[glehav]

hightech what about trying to go back to the defalt mode { the factory setting} and see how it works from there. i have a garmin and have played around with it befor and got some of setting in the wrong mode before, and had to go back to the defalt mode to get it back working. your owners manuel will tell you how to put it back it the defalt mode i hope this helps good luck. but maybe you have caught all the fish and there is not any down there to see.....

 

[HighTechRedneck]

All
Thanks for all the replys. I have talked to garmin once again and they are sending me out a NEW unit. They also want me to try to revert back the firmware I currently have in my unit to see if the resent firmware is causing the issues.

I am going out for a testing run on thursday or friday so if I still have a issue I can call their tech support while on the boat. Up until they would make a suggestion and I would go try it on the weekend but they are closed on the weekend so if it still didn't work I had to wait until the next week to call them. I have been going back and forth all summer.

I will let you know what i come up with.
THanks again
HTR

 

[glehav]

thats good news that they are sending you another one, how nice of them, but hightec what is a firmwave ????? and where can i get one...... all of our waves are firm down here in bama.....

 

[HighTechRedneck]

FINIALLY GOT THE PROBLEM RESOLVED.

Garmin sent me out another transducer but this time instead of the 200k dual beam they sent me out the 200k/50k dual frequency transducer. The new one works great. I talked to Airmar who makes some of the garmin transducers and they told me the dual beam 200k is a peice of junk. they said the ceramic in the tranducer is very poor quality and that is where my problem was.

After all is said and done I replaced the transducer 3 times and the head unit once. they sent me everything free of charge. I have 2 extra dual beam transducers that they didn't want back. the dual beam does work good in water less than 40 feet deep but beyond that their useless. Garmin customer service was very good but every time I called the different tech support reps told me a different story. It seems they need to train their staff a bit more so they are all on the same page.


HTR

 

[Dave LeGear]

Glad you got it corrected and as a guy who works in tech support and has built and directed help desks in the past, always make sure you try and get a case number and use the same case number going forward when you call. This cuts down on a lot of having to explain everything over again and again and hopefully, each person puts in good case notes for each call...