Lowrance hds tips tricks and preferences forum

Hi all I recently had a lowrance hds8 with a p79 airmar inhull tranny fitted to the new boat I haven't had the chance to try it out in the deeper water yet but after having a little play with it in the sound while crabbing I was very impressed even though I was only in 10-20mtrs it made it easy to pick out weed patches and at top speed 30+ knts the picture was still crystal clear. Just gotta wait for some decent weather to try it out in the 80s. I've done a bit of searching on here for manual tuneing tips and found a little info but not a great deal so I thought I'd start a post for people to put up there personal preference settings on the hds. It's interesting to hear the different ways people set there sounders up maybe we can teach the less wiser (like myself) how to get the best results out of there hds unit. A few things I'm most interested in is what background colour do most of u guys find the easiest to read hard bottOm and coral etc. Also just wondering do u use the same settings drifting as u would while traveling at speed or do u turn the gain up giving u a faster picture. Thanx guys in advance I'm sure there's alot of different preferences for settings at least if we all post what we know about the hds we all might find out something we didn't know and when it comes to finding fish u can never know to much :-)

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Play hard fish harder


spanishmackeral's picture

Posts: 940

Date Joined: 05/01/11

good idea, im currently

Sat, 2012-01-07 09:54

good idea, im currently trying to figure out the best way to set up the sounder to find new ground (bottom lock vs zoom). the settings on our hds 5 are fairly basic, but i found what made the image alot clearer is setting the tranny about 10mm below the hull, gives us less noise and clearer pic at speed.

Paul H's picture

Posts: 2104

Date Joined: 18/01/07

Just bought 2x HDS 5 to link

Sat, 2012-01-07 11:09

Just bought 2x HDS 5 to link up as stand alone GPS and sounder units.  Will be installing them soon.  There are plenty of youtube vids available re settings just need to pick out the better ones (a lot of lake type senarios but some still helpful).

Colour Palete 13 is the default

Palette 1 or 2 seem to be the ones used.

 

Palette 1 uses yellow as the strongest signal strength and blue the weakest with the background white.

Palette 1 is better for seeing different bottom hardness.

Palette 2 uses green as the strongest signal strength but also paints brown only as the bottom. This does make is slightly easier to see fish close to the bottom as a different color than the bottom but is not soo good for telling sand weed rock etc.

 

Other settings if in Manual

Sensitivity around 85% give or take (may depend on the depth your in)

Colourline around 75% give or take

 

 

Will be interested to see other feed back

 

Cheers

 

 

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Youtube Channel  -  FishOnLine Productions

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbUVNa-ViyGm_FTDSv4Nqzg/videos

Lamby's picture

Posts: 3145

Date Joined: 04/08/09

Surprised to see limited

Sat, 2012-01-07 11:50

Surprised to see limited responses to this post considering how many members rave on about how shit hot their lowrance sounder is, then again maybe I am not. However that looks like some good input from Paul & Steve231 is another that has his settings down pat, I would pick his brain biggerfish

neville hood's picture

Posts: 51

Date Joined: 26/09/11

Have had hds8 for 2 years and

Sat, 2012-01-07 12:55

Have had hds8 for 2 years and use palette 1, gain and colourline, mostly high, are constantly being changed due to the conditions, speed etc, scroll speed medium and filter medium.once you have worked the pages function the rest is a breeze. At 50m mine picks up the line going down and also jigs being worked, the burly bucket is a pain as it picks up and contiuously scolls along the screen and when i pull anchor it fools you ( for a while ) into thinking there's fish below due to the disturbance of the ground. Up to 100m i tend to use bottom lock more. After getting used to my yamaha digital gauges everything else is easy. Overall pretty happy with the combo.

Cheers neville 

Posts: 2925

Date Joined: 27/12/06

Hds

Sat, 2012-01-07 15:40

I have 2 hds 5 sounder and gps, I really like them, unfortunately I don't have alot of advice as I am still figuring mine out.
I really like how I can see a lump on my sounder and mark the exact spot with the gps as they are linked

fishy fingers's picture

Posts: 1719

Date Joined: 28/04/07

where to get ethernet cable

Sat, 2012-01-07 19:32

anybody know where I can get an ethernet cable for hds

fisho-ron's picture

Posts: 2539

Date Joined: 26/09/09

i got mine from hayways mate.

Sat, 2012-01-07 19:35

i got mine from hayways mate.

fishy fingers's picture

Posts: 1719

Date Joined: 28/04/07

Thanks ron

Sat, 2012-01-07 19:57

I know they're closing but I'll ring them monday they may still have one

fisho-ron's picture

Posts: 2539

Date Joined: 26/09/09

they will be there for a few

Sat, 2012-01-07 20:04

they will be there for a few months yet mate. they could order you one as well if needed.

 

fishy fingers's picture

Posts: 1719

Date Joined: 28/04/07

ok

Sat, 2012-01-07 20:20

thanks ron

Posts: 2925

Date Joined: 27/12/06

All boat

Sat, 2012-01-07 22:24

I got mine from all boat business, you have to connect some of the multicore cable also to get the 2 units to talk, I think I still have the drawing for it, all boat rang the east coast lowrance rep to find out the connections for it. Pm me if you need more info

fishy fingers's picture

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Date Joined: 28/04/07

not connecting two

Sun, 2012-01-08 06:17

only for updating the software from someone elses hds

fisho-ron's picture

Posts: 2539

Date Joined: 26/09/09

thats not true mate.i have

Sun, 2012-01-08 06:23

thats not true mate.

i have mine talking to each other and the only thing connected is the eithernet cable, nothing else.

i was told the same by the boys down at all boats about the multi core wires but its not true, a lowrance rep told me to connect only the eitherenet cable and it works.

cheers mate

biggerfish's picture

Posts: 669

Date Joined: 02/03/09

I found this site while

Sat, 2012-01-07 23:12

I found this site while looking for hds info it has a lot of wiring diagrams for lowrance http://www.bbcboards.net/zerothread?id=282434

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Play hard fish harder

Posts: 2925

Date Joined: 27/12/06

Link

Sun, 2012-01-08 07:23

 Yep it shows in that link connection of the yellow and orange cables.  My units would still talk through the Ethernet but I couldn't mark a gps point on my sounder until these wires were connected

6157's picture

Posts: 78

Date Joined: 29/08/11

Noise

Tue, 2012-01-10 13:01

 On my hds5 it always tends to show heaps of noise. Is there a way to minimize this??

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 Livin the Dream 

reef runner's picture

Posts: 56

Date Joined: 21/12/11

carton!

Tue, 2012-01-10 14:27

Gday Guys,

ive had my HDS 10 now for about 6 months and have found some good ground with it but def need some lessons, if someones willing to fine tune it for me ill hit you up a carton,

 

cheers Kristian

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Work 2 Fish!

Posts: 6265

Date Joined: 26/04/14

 can we get this put in the

Mon, 2015-01-19 16:55

 can we get this put in the lowrance page and fire it up again lads?

 

i seem to be getting poor showings on my hds 8 gen2 when engine is idling in nuetral, but when iam cruising ( any speed ) or engine off it is a mint picture.

must be something simple iam missing?

 

cheers lads

 

gilly

Paul H's picture

Posts: 2104

Date Joined: 18/01/07

That's a bit strange Gilly

Mon, 2015-01-19 17:33

That's a bit strange Gilly all the similar problems I have seen are related to turbulence when moving.  Could slop when in chop/swell be a factor when drifting??

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Youtube Channel  -  FishOnLine Productions

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbUVNa-ViyGm_FTDSv4Nqzg/videos

Posts: 6265

Date Joined: 26/04/14

 nah i dont think it could be

Mon, 2015-01-19 17:38

 nah i dont think it could be slop / chop because as soon as i turn motor of picture is perfect, the problem only seems to be when idling, do you think it could be noise reduction setting

Paul H's picture

Posts: 2104

Date Joined: 18/01/07

Yeah just noted that bit -

Mon, 2015-01-19 17:52

Yeah just noted that bit - I'd be looking at interference from engine or associated wiring etc.... - sparkplugs perhaps/rev related??

 

 

____________________________________________________________________________

Youtube Channel  -  FishOnLine Productions

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbUVNa-ViyGm_FTDSv4Nqzg/videos

Posts: 6265

Date Joined: 26/04/14

 cheers paul ill start

Mon, 2015-01-19 18:23

 cheers paul ill start investigating.

 

ive been trying to figure a way to describe what iam seeing and turning it into words fishwreckers could understand, so here goes.

 

when iam cruising i mark fish, ground or a lump. cruise back to the mark set the drift and put motor in nuetral, the lump fish etc is a no show and the showing on the screen is very bland boring even looks like flat ground but i no its not, i decided to turn the motor off next drift and the screen was lit up with fish and quality ground exactly like what i had seen cruising over the mark the first time.

 

hope that makes sense.

glastronomic's picture

Posts: 892

Date Joined: 16/02/11

Maybe you are "pulling" to

Wed, 2015-01-21 08:32

Maybe you are "pulling" to much current and the alternator is not capable to supply, or is on it's way out. Voltage drop occurs and the electronics
throws a hissy fit.
try switching off all other stuff and see if that makes a difference.
Other way is to check the out put of the alternator.
And check for a bad connection of supply to your system.
Hope this might help solving your problem

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Posts: 6265

Date Joined: 26/04/14

 hope its not the alternator,

Wed, 2015-01-21 18:10

 hope its not the alternator, its a 2014 90hp suzuki

 

will try the turning rest of electronics off 

Posts: 5739

Date Joined: 18/01/12

just fitted a HDS8 to use as

Mon, 2015-01-19 18:14

just fitted a HDS8 to use as a plotter but have a transducer on it as a backup.

Just have to say that the Furuno is so much easier to set up and adjust than the HDS.

Rotary knobs are so much more user friendly.

I still havent been able to find how to use or set up the bottomlock properly, nor "shift" the picture down to watch only the lower part of the column without just pushing the cursor down, then when you "exit" it goes straight back.

Ive slept on the boat at the islands and Kalbarri for 7 nights since I fitted it and mucked around on it after the kids have crashed each night but still cant get it right.

Questions for the experts

1/ How to get the "bottomlock" to show on the screen with chart beside?

2/ How to get the lower part of water column to show only?

3/ How to adjust ANYTHING on the sounder while using split screen chart, without having to go out of chart altogether?

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 Give a man a mask, and he'll show you his true face...

 

 

The older you get the more you realize that no one has a f++king clue what they're doing.

Everyone's just winging it.

 

Posts: 2925

Date Joined: 27/12/06

Hds8

Mon, 2015-01-19 18:44

 Hi Rob

havent got mine in front of me but from the best of my memory

1/ not sure if this is possible without running a split screen on your sounder side, IMO the lowrance bottom lock isn't that good Anyway so use your furuno bottom lock if your unit has it

2/ menu > range> custom> then adjust your top and bottom ranges to suit yourself

3/ can't do, you will have to hold the pages button down to swap between chart and sounder

hope it helps 

Posts: 6265

Date Joined: 26/04/14

gen 1 or gen 2? can help if

Mon, 2015-01-19 18:48

gen 1 or gen 2? can help if gen 2

 

edit what this chap ^^^^ said

Posts: 5739

Date Joined: 18/01/12

gen 2, I much prefer Furuno

Mon, 2015-01-19 21:00

gen 2, I much prefer Furuno as a sounder but have been very curious to see the 2 side by side

Honestly, just for ease of use Furuno has it for me, but I still like to use the Lowrance.

The one useful feature on it that I do like using so far is scrolling back thru the sounder to mark a spot.

____________________________________________________________________________

 Give a man a mask, and he'll show you his true face...

 

 

The older you get the more you realize that no one has a f++king clue what they're doing.

Everyone's just winging it.

 

Posts: 6265

Date Joined: 26/04/14

bottom lock and chart

Mon, 2015-01-19 21:15

 Can only be done with split screen. When you have your sounder page up or split screen with sounder as dominate page then bottom lock is in the bottom right corner. I think it's calld split from memory you then select bottom lock

Posts: 6265

Date Joined: 26/04/14

 

Tue, 2015-01-20 18:39

 

Posts: 31

Date Joined: 09/10/14

 I can't help gillyL

Sat, 2015-01-24 01:17

 I can't help gillyL unfortunately so bit of a hijack, but I have a HDS10 gen 1, and only get clear soundings to about 3 knots, then the whole screen fills with noise/clutter? Transducer seems to be low enough, but is on Port side of engine, it has been suggested I move it to other side of prop?

Posts: 6265

Date Joined: 26/04/14

 I would move it. Also it's

Sat, 2015-01-24 05:54

 I would move it. Also it's more then just about being low enough, you can go to low as well as too high. Spend a bit of time getting it perfect

Cozza's picture

Posts: 10

Date Joined: 20/07/14

Im running a HDS 10 gen 1 and

Fri, 2015-03-20 21:16

Im running a HDS 10 gen 1 and linked with a HDS 7 using a cheap P79 in hull transducer, It holds bottom ok traveling at 3nts but over that you cant even see the bottom. The fibre glass hull is a 1" thick?? so this could be my main problem

Ive asked a expert and he swears by the thou hull transducers,  Has anyone changed over from the Transom or in hull transducer to a thou hull transducer and havent looked back

Cheers

Cozza

Cozza's picture

Posts: 10

Date Joined: 20/07/14

Im running a HDS 10 gen 1 and

Fri, 2015-03-20 21:16

Im running a HDS 10 gen 1 and linked with a HDS 7 using a cheap P79 in hull transducer, It holds bottom ok traveling at 3nts but over that you cant even see the bottom. The fibre glass hull is a 1" thick?? so this could be my main problem

Ive asked a expert and he swears by the thou hull transducers,  Has anyone changed over from the Transom or in hull transducer to a thou hull transducer and havent looked back

Cheers

Cozza