I have been building a map with a bottom hardness layer (using preset AT5 Colour Band Shaded Relief and Depth Highlight), but when I use the map in my HDS gen2 unit, I do not have the option to turn on/off the bottom hardness layer...the hardness shows by default and I cannot hide it. I first thought something was wrong with my Lowrance unit, because this map works on another lowrance unit I have (I can turn on or off the hardness) but the tech support for Lowrance had me make a map in Insight Genesis to test the unit and this unit did fine with the Insight Genesis-produced bottom layer. I've created a small segment of the map and uploaded it . Does anyone see anything that would explain why the harness layer of this map would not work?

What do you see in your chart categories? I will take a look at your file on a Gen 3 and report back.

Sounds like a bug in the software on your HDS. Save all waypoints to a memorycard, redo the latest softwareupdate and do a hard reset.

FYI, soft reset was all it took to fix this (figured I'd try that before a hard reset). Sorry that Lowrance tech support did not suggest that in the 3 interchanges we had...Team Colibri, I'd say you deserve honorary pro-staff status with Lowrance...you're better than their trained support staff:)

Thanks. :)
You might be closer to the thruth then you think, I used to be Prostaff for the Norwegian Lowrance-agent. Not so any more, but I still have contact with both them and Navico US.

Hi Dshoup,

Do you onw a HDS Gen 2 Touch or a HDS Gen 2 keyboard version? If you own the last type HDS Gen 2, how do you get the depth highlight working? I own a HDS 10 Gen 2 (non touch) but can find a way to display the depth highlight. Any help would be welcome!

I am using a gen2 touch unit, but I think the gen 2 non-touch is similar. While a map is the active window on the unit, go to the menu and select "chart options," then "view," then "categories." This brings up a list of a bunch of things that can be checked or unchecked. One should be "(AREA) Bottom Composition". You can google search something like Lowrance turn on bottom hardness and see instructions specific to your unit if the menus are not the same as mine..that is how I found it. There is an ability to do this from the insight genesis maps, so it is pretty well documented for that application and the process works the same with the ReefMaster maps (at least on my unit). Good luck!

Hi dshoup,

Thanks for the reply. However my question was not about the bottom hardness feature but about de depth highligth layer. How can you make the depth highlight layer in pink visible on a HDS? I asked this because in your first mail you said your were using a map not only with bottom hardness but also with depth highligt.

Regards,

Mörrum

Sorry...should have read more carefully:) I was actually referencing the ReefMaster preset output format I was using (depth highlight is part of the title of that preset configuration). That said, I have learned how to turn this on/off (but note, you may need to be exporting your maps using a preset that supports the function). If I remember correctly, this defaults to being turned on and I had to figure out how to turn it off...so if you do not see the pink highlighting, it might be a sign that you need to export using a different method. I have to be honest...I have not used this feature much and really only learned to use it because my countour shading was obscured by the pink highlighting being set to "on" for all depths. So if the instructions don't work right, let me know and I can try to play with my unit some time and get better instructions, but this is what I wrote down so I would be able to turn this off if my unit ever got reset such that it was on by default again.

Depth highlighting can be turned on/off by going to "menu", "chart options," "view," "categories," then put a check mark on "(area) Depth Highlight" to turn on or uncheck to turn off. If you want to highlight a different depth range, click on the depth highlighting arrow at the left to expand the category and select which range(s) you want to have highlighted and uncheck those you do not want highlighted. No doubt Lowrance could have made these things a lot more intuitive...LOL. Hope this works for you.