does tranducer have to be submerged to work?

[Hankson]

Due to the drain plugs on my pontoons I can't easily mount the transducer low enough to surmerge it. It is about 1" above the water at highspeed. At slow speed under 10mph it is surmerged several inches. It stops reading depth at about 10mph anyway.

 

[MinUph]

Re: does tranducer have to be submerged to work?

I would say yes they need to be submerged. I think he signal would bounce off the water if it wasn't.

 

[GA_Boater]

Re: does tranducer have to be submerged to work?

Yes and if it's out of the water at 10 mph that might be why you lose the bottom. Do you have a pic of the set up? There might be some ideas here if we can see it.

 

[5150abf]

Re: does tranducer have to be submerged to work?

yes it needs to be in constant contact with the water, you will have to come up with a mount to get it there, if there is a time you for sure want that to work it is at speed.

 

[old jim]

Re: does tranducer have to be submerged to work?

I am not sure of the correct words to use but my transducer is attached to the
transom pod or cone. Seems to work just fine. Regards, old jim

 

[The Rooster]

Re: does tranducer have to be submerged to work?

"Hankston", if its reading at slow speed but you lose the signal at higher speeds, are you sure it is snapped firmly in place? You should not be able to move it at all. I had a similar thing happen on one of my barges. Good luck !!!

 

[Nightfisher-]

Re: does tranducer have to be submerged to work?

It should be submerged and read at all speeds. Way to risky to not be. Unless your the type of person that likes having to get out and push it off a sandbar, possibly damaging a log or destroying your prop or the lower unit on your motor. Have a bracket made and welded on that will allow the transducer to get around the plug and low enough to stay in the water. I found on mine the transducer had to be a little lower than the bottom of the log to not get interference from turbulence.

 

[Bama Hound]

Re: does tranducer have to be submerged to work?

I went another way. I have mounted mine to the front of boat. I mounted a 4" door hinge to a short length of 2X4 and mounted that to cross member ahead of the wake that the pontoons make. It is held forward by a strong spring. Transducer is mounted to piece of 1" aluminum electrical conduit and secured to piece of 2X4 with "U" bolts. I know a picture is worth 1000 words but I don't have one. If interested I will try to get one but this week is really hard for me. I hope my description will get you a thought. I used what I had. Think of it as a swing arm, held forward by a strong spring. Being forward of boat gives you a little more heads up to conditions.

 

[H20Rat]

Re: does tranducer have to be submerged to work?

submerged, no... But the bottom surface has to be in solid contact with the water. Any air (or even air bubbles), and goodbye reading.

 

[OK Toon]

Re: does tranducer have to be submerged to work?

"Hankston", if its reading at slow speed but you lose the signal at higher speeds, are you sure it is snapped firmly in place? You should not be able to move it at all. I had a similar thing happen on one of my barges. Good luck !!!

I found this out the hard way. We had beached on a sandbar and I guess it had "snapped" the transducer out of the "locked" position when the back of the pontoon "beached" in the shallow water. I guess this is a safety thing so it doesn't actually get broken off when beaching in really shallow water. I didn't notice the thing had snapped out of position and we pushed off from the sandbar. I was in normally 32' of water, but the depth guage was now reading over 500' of water! I stopped and got into the water and that's when I discovered I could just snap the transducer back into place and all was good again. So now that is something I check everytime when pushing off from being beached. I try to beach where the back of the pontoon is still in deep enough water, but that isn't possible all the time.