Very clear Tim, what were the fish? I'd like to upgrade my sounder but not sure its worth it until I get a bigger boat.

I'm impressed Tim, they are the deepest shots I've seen from a standard ducer. Do you think it's necessary for a 1KW??

Look out gold band when Tim hits Exmouth again.

Good picture for that depth Tim.

looks like you have that one sussed. but why the black background

Russ the black background highlights the colours/sounding that get lost with the blue or white background. Not that I'm generally looking for it but those finer light blue/white flares/soundings can mean stopping and getting fish or keeping on steaming and not seeing anything. I the look actually.

Steve I did sound out in 300m at about 6 knots and it still read the bottom ok, but the gain needed to be wound up close to max. I'm not sure if the 1kW is necessary but it'd be good to see one in action to compare. It'd have to give a better reading but if it's worth it...no idea.

I also don't know what the fish were, no point bringing any up.

If you head out deep alot go for the 1kw

If you only get out there 2/3 times a year then dont worry

One thing that did stand out was the water temp, pretty warm for this time of the year, could be a good season......

Nice readings Tim. The deeper one looks like a school of reds to me, slightly off the bottom on very little structure. 1kw will improve readings both in the deeper water and water under 80m. Has for my Koden anyway. Still not sold on the lowrances bottom lock it is completely different to mine.

tim

i am with you guys on the bottom lock, dont like it and dont use it,

i have used the black b/g and found (for me)the blue makes for easier reading.

have you found if you drop back to auto sens, it drops hugely, i am around the same settings as yours pitchured, but on auto it drops to 15%.

why is this so?

also i use the it as sounder only most times and have it on zoomx2.

on the gps side...how you finding the uprate speed?

strange that your bottom lock seems more like a zoom on furuno.

the b/l on furuno gives the bottom trace as absolutely flat no matter what swell or depth change.

good sounding though at those depths for 600w

i have the 1kw on furuno , and when on 50hz , i need to be going really slow <6 knots and wind down gain or it's all clutter.

Can't wait mate, those rubies aren't going to know what hit them.  Also might be able to try live baiting for bills on the baitballs.  Should be awesome!!

Oh and that water temp looks dismal, up over the 27's up here at the moment and the sails have moved into the gulf in a big way.

Haha FU adam, we thought 21 was good ;)

@110m. what setting were you using deep water , general purpose , or shallow . im new to the hds10

thers more to it than that , thers 8 diff.fish mode options +surface clarity ,ping, noise rejection , scroll ,

Do you use that programme to view your days sounder images at home? If not give it a go, its pretty good. All you need to do is record your soundings onto an sd card and then plug into your computer and view the whole day's images. Its amazing how many spots you can pic up for a later "look see". Lets you play with the settings too to see which ones will work best.

I've done a few spots which help understand where the fish might be holding.

I wish I had held off on getting my unit for 6 months as I got the last of teh old LCX 37s with a separate broadband unit. Would have been nicer to get the HDS10 all in one.

got 2 7s networked & looking at having a go in 200m+ know now i should be ok & will try your black background ,just have to wait untill no ban

ps franterie i email lowrance & they told me that shallow water is up untill 100m

Hopefully mine looks just as good, what I want to know is with the plotter side of things what do you gys find works better heading up or north up??

I use two GPS units, one is purely a gps and is set on heading up, which helps me navigate to spot drifts a lot easier than going round and round in circles with the north up feature. Then I use a North up on the plotter/sounder combo to get wider position reference and navigating back through reefy country.

Each to their own but I have been on guys boats that fish with North up and we take half an hour to get the drift right, whereas with heading up I find its far easier to get back to the drift line a lot quicker = more fishing time and less boat driving time.

I only use north up, but you need to use compass as well , and thinking of a clock face helps too. 

heading up fully confuses me as if the current is fighting the wind and you have a wierd drift direction , it all goes to 5hit.

at least if i'm drifting and i can see it's a n/e drift , i just head for 1.30 (thinking of clock) past mark and turn 180 deg , heading for 7.30 until your on pos.

confused???

It is interesting that there seems to be various opinions as to what background colour is best.  I changed to white from blue after I think it was a comment on here from Ryan of Oceanside fame.  Black looks good tho .... ???

North up all the way for me but this may be because I've been using it on plotters and radars for years.
When going back to restart drifts etc I usually know what bearing I need to take and do all of my "fine tune" manouvers using my boats compass rather than the GPS screen. The compass is instant and real time where the plotter usually is a little behind, especially at showing your heading at very slow speeds and when there is no land around for reference.

indeed.

it also helps to be moving at at least 5 knots to stop being pushed around by the wind.

and if you're zoomed in too close on plotter , you'll have more trouble hitting mark

as for background colour , white all the way .

black or blue if night fishing (tho some returns are blue)

I'm with you Graham, I prefer a white background, but each to their own.
North up for me as well.

Nice clear shot there Tim. Good to see the HDS well tuned & I bet you're enjoying time on the water.

Can't wait for the next window of opportunity in the weather!

Used SeaSwirls HDS10 a bit last week. Nice unit, and read very well in 110m of water even on 200hz. Still not sure about the swanky menu system, it feels a little bit gimicky, but apart from that, very nice.

My units have a lot of fingerprints on the screen. How do I remove the prints? It seems the oils in fingers permanently stain the screen.

tim

i meant positionig.

it updates faster than my navman, so it was all good for me, it was just something steve231 had mentioned before.

same here as well mate, mine is on manual all the time now.

cheers ron

yeah mine seems to update quickly, I'm yet to be left waiting for it to do its thing.

Ron, that was all the ambers right under your boat!!!!!

I ended up having  to buy a 10m due to the 8m not being there to install so dissapointed  anyways I have the 10m and a 7 going into my boat and just to confuse the absolute crap outta myself I'm going to see if I can split screen the 10m with 2 charts one heading up one north up that should do it.

you should be able to do that split, I'll have a crack this arvo on mine and see if it works.