I am running Lowrance hdslive on my console and bow. I get depth reading while dead in the water and at idle speed, but once on plane I lose the depth reading. The bass pro sales manager is telling me that is normal, but I've NEVER had a system do this, humminbird or lowrance.

"I watched your video right now, from just that one view it looked pretty typical of when the bottom drops off. The newer side scan transducers loose side scan function around the 15mph mark and start loosing bottom around 40mph depend on depth. Basically the boat is out running the ping hitting the bottom and coming back. The old style of skimmer transducers (high speed) will stay in contact with the bottom with speeds up to 60 mph."

Is this true? If so how do you run an unfamiliar lake safely? I'm not able to upload the video here, sorry. FYI this is on a brand new boat, the transducer is mounted properly and all other electronics work fine (except side scan, but that's another issue I think).

The problem is the transducer. Majority of all imaging transducers will not read depth at higher speeds due to transducer physical design. You could probably do a lot of trial and error and eventually get it to read but you would have to place the duder well beneath the transom hull. Depending on your boats hull design you would probably need a shoot thru ducer that is mounted in the bilge compartment

Thanks! That is all new to me. Every boat I've ever owned had the capability of reading depth on plane, even at 60mph. I appreciate the solution offered as well.

How do YOU navigate unfamiliar waters? What system do you use other than chart plotters which can be inaccurate? Most lakes wouldn't be an issue, but lakes like choke and lake o the pines...no way i'm trusting a chart plotter

The new "all in one" transducers are nice, but only if you're able to mount them correctly. They combine CHIRP with downscan/sidescan. But to work, especially the CHIRP function, the transducer must stay in level contact with the water at all times...including when on a plane. For those of us with bass boats, this is not easy. When on plane, there is very little of the boat in the water, essentially just the transom pad. This makes mounting the transducer so that it stays in level contact with the water at high speeds is...problematic at best. What happens when fishing Fork and you need to crawl over stumps at idle? Welp...the $500 transducer is exposed and likely to get damaged if not torn off altogether in this scenario.

As 44Diesel said, a shoot through hull transducer will solve this problem. However, this can present other problems. For example, your "all in one" transducer likely includes traditional high/wide CHIRP. A shoot through hull transducer uses the exact same technology to do the same thing. These two transducers will interfere with each other and cause problems. Thus, the preferred solution (at least MY preferred solution) is to separate the two functions into two different transducers. Thus, one transducer will provide downscan/sidescan at slow speeds and the shoot through hull transducer will provide traditional CHIRP sonar at both low and high speeds. In my case, I'm replacing old Gen 1 Lowrance stuff with all new Garnin stuff. Garmin makes a Y-adapter cable that allows me to connect the downscan/sidescan transducer and the shoot through hull CHIP transducer to the same interface on the back of the base unit. Thus, all the required information is being fed to the single base unit connection but via two different transducers.

For your specific Lowrance setup, I would recommend:

9-Pin Shoot-Thru Hull Pod Med/High CHIRP (No Temp) - SKU: 000-14886-001
Active Imaging 2-in-1 Transducer - SKU: 000-14490-001

In your case, the HDS Live unit has TWO nine pin interfaces, Ports B and C. Thus both of these transducers would need to occupy both of those interfaces. This should also allow you to use ActiveTarget as the ActiveTraget module is connected to the HDS Live end units via the Ethernet interface, Port D.

Hope this helps.

I recently had a Helix 7 Mega DI installed on my Four Winns I/O fish and ski. The shop I took it to mounted the transducer just to the right of the outboard near the bottom of the hull. I took it out for the first time today and noticed the same thing that was mentioned above. Any time I got up on plane and was going any decent rate of speed, the depth was either wrong or just completely disappeared. Any idea on my setup and how I could do something about it? Could it be a settings thing? Did they mount it in a bad place? I'm still very much trying to learn all of this, so I don't have much of an idea on how to improve the situation at this point. Any help is appreciated.

Do you have any pics? Generally transducers are installed on the starboard side of the motor to avoid cavitation interference of the prop wash. To maintain constant contact with the water, the transducer should hang just below the bottom of the hull. Usually professional installers are pretty good about this. I would check the simple stuff first...like make sure the bolt that attaches the transducer to the mount is pretty tight. It might be something as simple as a lose connection allowing the transducer, when on plane, to be pushed upward and out of contact with the water.

This however presents another problem. If the transducer bolt is tight enough to force the transducer into contact with the water at high speeds, what happens when the transducer comes into contact with a submerged obstacle, like a stump, at low speeds. Likely, the transducer mount is broken. For this, I would recommend something like the "Spring Back Bracket" from Transducer Shield and Saver. This device presses the transducer down into contact with the water while allowing the transducer to deflect upwards when enough force is applied, thus protecting the transducer from damage.

Thanks for the reply AggieDave. I am going to try to upload some pics I took. Hopefully that will help. I checked the tightness of everything on the transducer and it seemed tight to me. But like I said, I have no idea if that's a good spot for it or not. I think it's in the same spot where the old transducer was for the Lowrance unit that was on the boat before. It did not have any problem finding depth at any speed. Tell me what you think from looking at the pictures. Is it possible I just need to change the settings? I just left everything at pretty much default to check it out on the first try. I appreciate the help. I have a ton to learn.

UPDATE -
After contacting Lowrance and filling out their online form, complete with serial numbers of the units, their "customer service" asked for the serial numbers again which I provided along with video of the unit in action (dropping the depth reading). I have yet to hear back from them after a week.
HOWEVER
It turns out there IS a second thru-hull transducer on the boat, but as with the active target, the 36v battery bank and so much else with this $70k Nitro, it was not installed and networked properly at the factory. The boat is still in the shop having the variety of issues resolved (hopefully). I will say as disappointed as I am in the entire process, the service department at Bass Pro is doing all they can to fix what the factory screwed up.
Incidentally, if you are in the market for shallow water anchors prepare to wait a long time to get them if you are going through Bass Pro. The boat was ordered January 7th and delivered April 7th sans Raptor shallow water anchors that were ordered with it. Those are on back order and the delivery date continues to change. The expected date at this time is mid-September. The shop tells me they have been searching for alternatives, Power Poles etc and found a supplier with blades that they are going to install in lieu of the Raptors.

That's excellent news! Not that they left it all unconnected, but that its an easy fix. Apparently, you have the exact same setup as me with the StructureScan transducer separate from the CHIRP transducer. Given the above, I would most certainly make sure the StructureScan/Active Imaging transducer is NOT a 3-in-1 model. You don't want two transducers both outputting CHIRP sonar. They will interfere with each other.

First, I assume this is model of transducer you have. https://humminbird.johnsonoutdoors....ga-di-dual-spectrum-chirp-w-temp-transom

Transducers look fine to me. The Mega DI might be a bit low in the water, and awfully close to the hull on the right side, but if it's using the same holes as the previous transducer, that's not a bad thing. Fish-n-Skis are kinda tough due to the hull design required to do two things. The first pic is your water speed transducer. Honestly, with modern GPS (modern being in the last 15 years) these transducers are largely useless. Generally, they provide input to an analog gauge on the console, and in my experience, isn't very accurate. The SOG (Speed over Ground) data from your chartplotter is far more accurate. As for the Mega DI transducer as long as it stays flat on the water surface you should be fine. That said, your transducer looks like its pretty low in the water. To read at speed, those transducers are designed to be drug across the surface of the water, versus completely submerged and drug through the water column.

Obviously, you don't want to go drilling multiple holes in your boat trying to find the "right place". If you want to keep using the Mega DI + CHIRP transducer, I would recommend using a StenMate kit. There are several combinations to choose from with one underlying principle. Mount one plate, once...then mount the transducer to the plate. There are standard plates, set back plates outrigger plates and something called Step-Lad'r. They allow you to move the transducer around to find the right spot without drilling multiple holes in the boat. There are several ways to DIY this w/o spending money with StenMate.

Personally, I've never had good luck with the transducers that combine CHIRP with side/down imaging for the exact reason we're seeing in this thread. To get get detailed side/down imaging PLUS accurate speed and temp at high speeds, the transducer mounting must be NASA level precise. In theory, they're great. Just personally, I've never been able to get the mounting *just right*. I've always had better luck separating the side/down imaging from the CHIRP. That said, I'm sure others are MUCH better at this than me that can the placement right. Hopefully they will respond to this thread and enlighten us both.

You can run the 3-1, but will work better if you turn OFF the 2d sonar in the 3-1 and just use the 2d shoot through the hull. I fought this mess on my boat, turning OFF multi source in the setup menu and then select the shoot through hull as your main sonar source will fix the cross chatter possibilities. Sound complicated as heck, but easier when staring at the graphs.

This is the exact setup I went with when I replaced Gen 1 Lowrance gear with new Garmin gear. However, I'm not sure DRY Fishing *has* a shoot through hull transducer. In addition, he will need a Y-Cable to combine the Mega DI transducer with the CHIRP transducer...most likely 9 M SIDB Y (Item #720101-1). He would then need to install XP 9 HW (Item #710275-1) or a XP 9 HW T (Item #710276-1) if he wants an integrated temperature sensor.

Yes sir, I was referring to the OP with the Lowrance graphs. I don’t know anything about Hbirds, that guy should start a new post.

Great idea, I am going to get them to show me how they operate before I leave the parking lot for sure!