Humminbird 597 ci hd di Not working well, need your thoughts.

[Mudinchev]

Ok spent the week last week on the water with unit # 2 It worked better...sort of. It seemed to track bottom better, but not good enough, I could not run a depth alarm because it would loose bottom for short periods and set off the alarm. Now as well with this unit shallow water, (10ft or less) it looses bottom. I was anchored in 3-4 feet of water, the only thing powered up was the FF no motors running etc. It would jump around from 1ft to 18 feet and never find the bottom. Although I love the clarity of DI and its other features, this is a river boat as well as a lake boat. I need to know if I am running in 1-2 feet of water or 10 feet, I cant drop off of plane in 2 feet of water. I have read threw all of the pertinent information in the manual. I have tried every combination and sensitivity level adjustment that I can. I guess I will go for a 3rd unit, I really want one of these to work, compared side by side HB looked like it had better screen clarity than Lowrance and all my mounts are already there for this unit.

 

[SuperD]

Why not consider an aftermarket transducer like an Airmar? 50 X more sensitive than any off the shelf transducer. You will track bottom at planing speed.

 

[mrmike]

WOW Don't envy your situation if it don't work replace it. I've personally like most of us work hard for are money we want to spend it wisely. I have not heard VERY good things said about HD units to sensitive. I had a $1500.00 unit Lowrance that got salt water in the chip compartment, tried to send it off for repair was told the units to old (just over 5 yrs)we/they wouldn't even repair it sorry. I advised I spent a lot of money they just said sorry. I've purchased a Garmin the new 740S ALSO HAD SOME PROBLEM, but the shop that installed the unit had to reboot and up grad the chip everything is just fine. The things that are happening should not be. get another unit and brand. I've had brand new cell phone that didn't work I returned to the store and they had to up grade the soft ware the day after i purchased it. Good luck

 

[Mudinchev]

Why not consider an aftermarket transducer like an Airmar? 50 X more sensitive than any off the shelf transducer. You will track bottom at planing speed.

I might consider that in the future but not on a brand new dysfunctional $650 unit.

 

[Mudinchev]

For those that care to see what I am talking about, I wont post a link to it but you can go to Youtube and search Mudinchev79, there are 2 short videos there showing the issues.

 

[HBirdDeborahCRC]

Mudinchev,

In the video regarding the depth readings on your unit, the unit is manually selected to the 60 ft range.

Please restore the defaults on the unit as well as decreasing your surface clutter and try the unit on clear mode vs max mode.

When you are in 3 feet of water is the bottom very hard? If so you could be getting multiple returns. With the range set to 60 feet manually the bottom will go all the way up to the top of the screen as seen in your video if you are in shallower water

 

[Mudinchev]

Yes It occurs in automatic mode as well. Clear mode vs max mode also made no difference. As far as bottom hardness this video was taken on a sandy beach, where the boat was moored for the week it was a silt/muddy bottom. This was the first time it was used so I assume it would be set at the defaults to begin with. It never was able to give me a depth reading in shallow water from the time it was turned on at the docks, (water depth aprox 5 feet). I understand what you are saying about being set manually at 60ft and only having clutter on the screen, but that never made a difference with the depth reading if it was set to auto, once the boat was in 10 feet or less the screen would go clear to the top and the depth call out would bounce from 4 to 25 feet (same as the video shows). I noticed in deeper water 40-60feet the bottom would sometimes appear to be at 30 feet on the screen and the depth reading would say 40. Not very often but I did notice it, most of the time they matched pretty close.

Quote: "When you are in 3 feet of water is the bottom very hard? If so you could be getting multiple returns."

Does this mean It will not work with a hard bottom like a rocky river bed or over a rock shelf underwater?

 

[Mudinchev]

Well I am on my third unit.....but so far I think this one is going to work, it did well in the shallow water, deep water, and even tracked bottom while up on plane. So far the only issue is it would pick up my down rigger weights and give me that depth as a bottom reading from time to time. I am hoping I can adjust that out, we only went out for a couple of hours on Sunday and after a few trials I practiced using the GPS to keep me in the fish.....that worked really well! Every time I passed threw my marked areas we had fish on!

 

[mtom938]

I have the 597 HD DI combo as well. I thought it was going to act up after I updated the software to ver. 5.82. This was based on erroneous depth readings I was getting during "bucket testing". HB is right when they point out this test is not a valid method to check out the unit. I took it out to a local lake on Saturday and it performed flawlessly. I happen to like the fact I can see my downrigger weight. I'm a kayaker with a Scotty laketroller and since I use only a two pound weight, it gives me the ability to see my true depth while paddling. So far I am very happy with it.

 

[SuperD]

Here is something to make you scratch your head about your FF. I recently added a Hummingbird 700 series to the back of my boat to go along with the Lowrance I have in the bow. And in solo, anyone would assume either one of them was working perfectly. But what do you think when both are running at the same time and the depth indicator is as much as 5' off from the other one? Can it be something as simple as the angle not being perfectly the same on both transducers? All I know is it makes me a little less certain how deep of water I'm actually in now.

 

[Mudinchev]

Here is something to make you scratch your head about your FF. I recently added a Hummingbird 700 series to the back of my boat to go along with the Lowrance I have in the bow. And in solo, anyone would assume either one of them was working perfectly. But what do you think when both are running at the same time and the depth indicator is as much as 5' off from the other one? Can it be something as simple as the angle not being perfectly the same on both transducers? All I know is it makes me a little less certain how deep of water I'm actually in now.

Do you think the two signals could be interfering with each other? They didn't seem to when I was tied up side by side with Kokonuts trying to figure out issues with my old one and they were the exact same units. But anything is possible.
I am sure angle can make a difference in deep water, if you think about the hypotenuse of a right triangle it is always longer, but then the other side of the argument would be that you would have to be not moving and on perfectly flat water for that to make a huge difference. Even in really rough water with the boat pitching and rolling you don't see a lot of change. Some how they have figured all of that in to how it processes the signal. I am still fighting my depth readings when I am up on plane. But now it is deep water and shallow water. For the most part it holds the depth when trolling or moving slow no mater the water depth. On one hand I like seeing the DR weights but seeing any fish at that exact depth seems to be out of the question because there is a solid line across the screen.