Spot lock troubles?

Hey guy’s are you a beginner to using your spot lock and think it’s not holding tight enough to your spot? Try this

Great FYI video.

I've done the pairing several times,...never the spinning. I will next time I go out, Thanks Gary

Good info. Gary!

Jim just don’t get going to fast like I did lol

and in a wide open area,....

Gary, I have a quick question. When I bought my boat, the heading sensor was mounted at the dealer just in front of the console. Would moving it to the bow of the boat increase the performance of the Ultrex? I have no problems in open water but it goes crazy under bridges. I assumed and was told that I just would not be able to get a good GPS lock under the bridge. Thanks for any input you might have.

Heading sensor is just a compass used to the jog feature so moving it won’t increase performance. Bridges block GPS reception on all spot lock trolling motors so use with caution around them.

I’m not really sure about that particular question. Most I’ve seen have been mounted on the rear of a boat or on the console like yours. I just chose to mount mine in the front. All I can say is if you watch my videos mine works great underneath bridges lol Now I will say there are certain days that mine doesn’t work well anywhere and I’m not sure if that has to do with something blocking the satellites or what lol I’ve always just assumed it was another fishing guide hacking my stuff to mess my day up lol

I have my heading sensor mounted on the bow of my boat. I have done the pairing the way you show it several times in the past. Spot lock does not work for me under the bridge. It would be nice if it did. I wonder if the width of the bridge makes a difference. The one I fish is wide, having two lanes in each direction.

The heading sensor is a COMPASS. I'm fairly certain there is no antenna in it. (The GPS antenna is in the TM head, not that this would matter to what your actual issue is.) People get confused because the heading sensor is in the same type enclosure as GPS antennas. The reason you (and anyone else) has issues around bridges is STEEL. Think of the massive amount of rebar steel in that bridge, including the pilings. Now, think of how much that will likely confuse a magnetic sensor, aka, compass. Moving it won't make any difference. As far as heading change goes, if the bow makes a heading change, the rest of the boat makes the same change. The dealer was actually doing a good thing to get the sensor away from all the electromagnetic energy that is typically in the bow area.

I guess I should clarify that your TM still uses it's GPS antenna to spot lock. It uses the heading sensor to determine whether to adjust by turning the TM left or right. Besides the bridge typically messing with compass stability, a bridge above will block a significant part of the sky view typically needed to calculate position and adjustment vectors.

You need to do the calibration for the sensor also. Additionally, see my reply to dfd51. To spot lock, your TM must be able to calculate where it is, and that means the antenna needs a view of the sky to triangulate with the satellites - no matter whether the antenna is in the TM head or the puck. Any bridge above you is going to put the blinders on the TM calculating its position drift, so it can't calculate what adjustment to make. This is why boats with a T-top often put an external GPS antenna on top of the T-top. There's not really a solution for your issue given that the bridge blocks the sky view for any GPS antenna.

Got it. Thanks for the clarification guys and have a great day. Stay warm!!

Jim, I believe you need to complete two circles. Then the hand held will ask you to set the offset degrees. This tells the TM how far out of line the puck is to the keel of the boat. The puck is supposed to be mounted as close to parallel with the keel as possible. The offset calibration tells the TM where straight forward is. There is also a function on the handheld called boat scale that helps with spot lock although I never saw any thing in the instructions that stated how this feature was supposed to work. I just played with mine till it held tighter.