Marine Electronics Forum - problem with Furuno FF

I have a strange problem I can't figure out. I have a Furuno FCV 600L combined to an in hull bronze furuno ducer. I have the FF set at 200 kHz. Sometimes I can cruise up to 35 mph and read the bottom beautifully and yet other times I can idle in 10 feet of water and the FF goes crazy trying to find the bottom even though I haven't changed the settings.

Also, I get very bad deep water performance despite switching to the 50 kHz setting.The deepest I've ever read is about 300 feet and that was only once. I usually jsut lose signal altogether the moment I either go fast or hit blue waters.

I can readily access the ducer and from the outside at least it appears just fine but I haven't opened it up. I'm also rewiring my electronics and I'm going to make sure the FF gets a new electrical wire to ensure a good power source. Outside of that I don't know what to try unless it is a settings problem however since the FF does work at times I doubt that would be it.

what else could be going wrong?

there are many options that are adjustable - gain, display range, sensitivity etc. u need to read the manual sounder section in the owners manual.

I had problems with mine (gp7000) after a well intentioned rigger "cleaned up" some of my wiring. He coiled the trasnducer cable tightly which caused problems. I made it "sloppy" again - loose coils - and it reads like a champ.

Also, make sure the ducer cable isn't tied to your engine harness or something... that could give your noise.

good luck.

The ducer cable is pretty loose in the areas that I can see it. I am in the process of cleaning up some wiring. I'm a neat freak when it comes to wiring and needless to say the previous job wasn't up to my standards. As for the settings I placed most of them on automatic. I'm jus wondering if something is wrong inside the ducer cavity itself???

Loosing signal when going fast or in rougher seas is an indication that the transducer is not mounted in an ideal location ie it's not staying submerged or always getting "clean" water.

I was having the same trouble with my Furuno 585 unit.

I found that the transducer cable crossed the engine power cables in two locations. Re-hung that wire to maximize separation between the wires and now it holds bottom at all speeds, and shows more bottom detail and more fish. :thumbsup:

well here's an update. After tearing up my FF installation I noticed that when it was originally installed they placed 2 EMI noise suppressor, one around the power cable and the other around the ducer cable. Well the ducer EMI fell off. I wonder if that alone was causing the problem?? I have no experience with EMIs??