i cannot get my unit to identifi fish.arent they supposed to show up as arches or hooks please help

Dan, you might try the General Equipment Forum section.

I don't blame you for posting in this area. 67 folks in here and only 15 in the general equipment area 'cause it's down below the screen. Any How, I have that problem with mine on the bow. I pulled the front panel of the boat off and checked the transducer cord and sure enough they pinched it on installationl. I haven't replace mine yet either($70 ). Still works fine for water temp and depth. I use my big one by the console to look for fish.

Bigmack - you can cut and splice the transducer wire to repair the break caused by the pinched wire. Easy fix, just remember to treat the sheild like another wire and splice it also.

You may want to reset the unit to the original factory settings. I have the same unit and I did that to mine this spring and have had alot better results. After me playing with all the settings I had it pretty screwed up. If you do this it will take off everything you had on the display, ie, depth, water temp, speed, etc. It's a little bit of work but I thought it was well worth it. Have you downloaded the emulator from the lowrance web site? It's a great tool, it allows you to play with a simulator on your comp.

It really depends on your settings, ping rate, sensitivity, surface clarity, and chart speed. There could be a ton of little things that could be wrong. I suggest reset it to the factory settings and start over with your adjustments from there. You can check your transducer very easily if you want too. Just crank up your ping rate to 100%,(don't have to be in the water) and put your finger on the bottom of your transducer and you should feel little thumps every sec or two. If that is not it give me a shout and maybe I could figure it out if you describe all your problems with your 480 to me on the phone. 214-460-1502

1. make sure its not on fish id. mode.
2. where the tranducer mounted.