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Questions. I now have the new 5.4 installed, and showing on the 4210.
Now… here’s the story. Right now the boat is not in the water, however I have the M260 (in hull (antifreeze in box) transducer). Before the update it would read about 3.4’ which was the approximate distance from the sounder to my driveway with the boat on the trailer. Now all I get is ‘-----‘ and no sounder data (depth or anything) at all. Could there be something different in the update that would make it less sensitive? (?) I set the range to ‘5’ and the gain to ‘1’… still nothing. I played with some other settings (auto, etc.)… still just ‘-----‘ for the depth reading…
I sort of don’t want to wait until spring to know if it is going to work, but understand if I have to.
Questions. I now have the new 5.4 installed, and showing on the 4210.
Now… here’s the story. Right now the boat is not in the water, however I have the M260 (in hull (antifreeze in box) transducer). Before the update it would read about 3.4’ which was the approximate distance from the sounder to my driveway with the boat on the trailer. Now all I get is ‘-----‘ and no sounder data (depth or anything) at all. Could there be something different in the update that would make it less sensitive? (?) I set the range to ‘5’ and the gain to ‘1’… still nothing. I played with some other settings (auto, etc.)… still just ‘-----‘ for the depth reading…
I sort of don’t want to wait until spring to know if it is going to work, but understand if I have to.
What do you think?
I have never known a marine depth sounder to work in a driveway out of the water. That doesn't explain your reading before updating but I wouldn't expect anything but what you have now from any sounder.
I have never known a marine depth sounder to work in a driveway out of the water. That doesn't explain your reading before updating but I wouldn't expect anything but what you have now from any sounder.
x2 It really can't work in driveway if you think about how these things work.
Guys. Keep in mind that it is a fluid filled M260. That should explain why it worked the first time.
The fluid does nothing more than couple the transducer to the hull surface which then couples it to the water (when it's in the water).
If you really want to test it, tow the boat to the ramp. You don't have to launch it or start the engine, just back it down into the water and test the sounder.
Fair enough. I'll keep my fingers crossed then that it will work at the start of the season. My faith in my GSD22 isn't that high, so when something that worked before stops working... I'm sure you can see my apprehension.
I'm with you Pete. While my boat is on it's trailer my 582L has always shown "some type" of return that is roughly the distance to the ground. I doubt if it would be useful in finding fish on the ground, but it appears to see the ground, Or it could be just some sort of sounder phenomenon? but I like to think it's getting a return.
It's not all that uncommon to get a return from a boat on the hard, especially if it's on stands...as they frequently are here in the yard. Further, that depth reading should be approx. 4.5 x the actual distance from the 'ducer to the surface.
Howard Keiper
Berkeley
Yeah. I *know* it worked before, because I even jacked the boat up about 8" and it jumped up just under a foot on the sounder. This is when it was on the trailer the first time.
There is NO doubt that it should read/show SOMETHING, and now it doesn't. Hopefully I'll get more information from this thread.
HowardK is correct, I just verified his post with Wikipedia. Sound through air travels at 343 m/s, while sound through seawater travels at 1560 m/s. The math works out to 4.54 rounded up.
I do a lot of trouble shooting as well as installations. I do find that a transducer does work out of water, which isn't surprise. I have a friend who bought a boat with dealer installed equipment and have noticed on the lift that his GSD-22 coupled to a 4212 does display depth but not all the time. I have wondered why this is.
Last edited by Team Ruby; 11-11-2009 at 11:20 AM.
Reason: add info.
HowardK is correct, I just verified his post with Wikipedia. Sound through air travels at 343 m/s, while sound through seawater travels at 1560 m/s. The math works out to 4.54 rounded up.
I do a lot of trouble shooting as well as installations. I do find that a transducer does work out of water, which isn't surprise. I have a friend who bought a boat with dealer installed equipment and have noticed on the lift that his GSD-22 coupled to a 4212 does display depth but not all the time. I have wondered why this is.
Ah... "but not all the time"... at least that tells me two things: I'm not crazy (at least on this one) and there is hope come the spring. :D
According to info from Airmar that if you have a thru hull or transom mount transducer you should never run your unit with the transducer turned on when the boats is out of the water or you could cause damage to the transducer. They did not say anything about a shoot thru hull type though (I did not ask) as I would assume that its due to being already installed in liquid.
Pirate, I wish I knew how true that statement really is and how much is an old wives tale. If it were really that much of an issue running a transducer out of the water, why isn't it a standard practice to some how turn the transducer on or off when the boat is in or out of the water? Think of everyone that turns their chartplotter on to do something like install waypoints while in their lift or on a trailer and the black box sounder is turned on because the chartplotter turned it on. How many times do you hear on this forum, " I burned up my 'ducer today, forgot I was out of the water"? I have worked on a lot of boats where the nav system has been turned on for a long time for various reasons and I knew the depthfinder black box was on and I have never had a transducer problem because of that. I'm not saying you're wrong or you have bad information. It's just that the information on this subject from "experts" is all over the place and I'm talking about the manufacturer's tech and service guys. I run a boat that had a long term DSM 300 issue and I asked a Raymarine service tech one day when I had him on the phone day if all this trouble shooting we were doing would hurt the transducer because the boat was in the slings. His response was absolutely not, but I couldn't tell you if he's 100% correct or not, it's just what he told me.
Did the GSD22 update... question: 
