The past two weekends, I have noticed some strange behavior from my depth guage/transducer. When scouting an anchorage, the depth reads way, way too deep. Once I get stopped and put down the anchor, the depth begins to read accurately. Last weekend, I was in an anchorage marked as 6 feet MLW, but the guage read 50 feet! I measured the depth with a boat hook and realized the chart was correct. By the time I had stopped the boat and walked forward to kick the anchor over, my wife told me the depth was reading 6.5 feet. It continued to show the depth accurately through two tide cycles. Same thing happened the weekend before, in a different anchorage. En route, and back at my home harbor, the depths read reasonably accurately relative to the chart. I don't get it. Is it just a faulty transucer? Electrical interference from the engine? Bushes on the bottom? Any ideas? Paul sv Escape Artist h336
Puzzling depth transducer behavior
- Thread starter Paul McGhee
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clean transducerf
When was the last time you cleaned your transducer or did you paint it? Manufacturers suggest not using regular bottom paint on transduces, also sometimes jsut a coating of slime which covers it will contribute to bad readings. There's also a gain adjustment which may help you but it does not sound like it would from your description. Good Luck!
When was the last time you cleaned your transducer or did you paint it? Manufacturers suggest not using regular bottom paint on transduces, also sometimes jsut a coating of slime which covers it will contribute to bad readings. There's also a gain adjustment which may help you but it does not sound like it would from your description. Good Luck!
Manufacturer's name
would help. Some makes have certain idiosyncrasies thet develop as they get older such as the old Signets that would work fine in deep water but crapped out when you really needed it in shallow water. Sent it back to California half a dozen times, they'd fix it, would last a few months then the same problem again.Your problem doesn't seem to me to be in the transducer, rather, it's in the sending and receiving unit, the display head. No solution here but I really sympathize with you as these problems are really difficult to diagnose. Having said this it wouldn't hurt to make sure the transducer is nice and clean. Hope the water isn't too cold there.
Good luck.
would help. Some makes have certain idiosyncrasies thet develop as they get older such as the old Signets that would work fine in deep water but crapped out when you really needed it in shallow water. Sent it back to California half a dozen times, they'd fix it, would last a few months then the same problem again.Your problem doesn't seem to me to be in the transducer, rather, it's in the sending and receiving unit, the display head. No solution here but I really sympathize with you as these problems are really difficult to diagnose. Having said this it wouldn't hurt to make sure the transducer is nice and clean. Hope the water isn't too cold there.
Good luck.
You may have a dirty TD
As Capt M. said, you may have some growth on your TD. It may distort your readings as the boat moves and "semi"-correct itself when anchored. Take a soft scrub-brush over the side and brush it off to see what happens.
As Capt M. said, you may have some growth on your TD. It may distort your readings as the boat moves and "semi"-correct itself when anchored. Take a soft scrub-brush over the side and brush it off to see what happens.
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