Hi,
I recently upgraded from Lowrance 5 Elite Ti with Totalscan to HDS Live 3in1 Active Imaging.

My rig is a Hobie Kayak that I motor with the Hobie trolling motor or pedals (when I need some exercise).

I sidescan mapped some areas with my 5 Elite Ti w/Totalscan using 455kHz trolling around 2-4 mph. With the 5 Ti w/Totalscan the sidescans were pretty consistent and didn't have the blurry patches in my sonar log that I am now getting with my HDS Live 3in1.

The main differences are that with my HDS Live/3in1, I'm using the 800kHz band. I'm sure there are some settings on my HDS that were different, but my main concern is the random blurry patches in the middle of my sonar log. If it was blurry the whole segment, I could understand, but this happens randomly (it seems) without any change in course or speed. I'll provide some pictures.

Anyone know why this happens?

It looks like a lack of pings in that section of the log, for whatever reason. The sonar viewer is scaled by time, so if, say, you are showing 30 seconds of sonar in your bottom image with an average of 10 pings per second (these are just random example figures), then you would have 300 rows of ping data, and the image would be of a uniform resolution. Now imagine that for 5 seconds you only 1 ping per second. The SV will stretch those 5x1 pings across a 5 second range, and it will look like your image - a very small amount of data stretched over a large area. Similar happens in the map view, except pings are stretched over the geographic area that they cover. The fact that you seem the same effect in both views suggests the root cause is the same. Why this should happen, I don't know, but I have seen examples before. If you want to share that specific log file with me I can take a look - in which case, zip it up and share using a file sharing service such as WeTransfer, and send the link to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

Matt,

Thanks for the response. I'll send the file later today. What you describe makes sense. Perhaps, my HDS unit has a glitch that causes it to delay pings some times. I do notice from time-to-time that my screen scroll acts like it's not scrolling for a couple seconds and then it starts moving again (not to be confused with me failing to clear my cursor after touching the screen to mark a waypoint). Maybe a CPU issue?

Thanks again.

I hesitate to guess exactly what might cause it, but it could be processor related. Are you running structure scan live overlay as you go? I know from experience that that can slow things down a bit. Are you recording to card or internal memory? Can you notice any pattern as to when the screen freezes up? It could be moments of more intense CPU usage, and that causes the issue. If the screen freezes coincide with the dropped pings, then I would strongly suspect that the two issues are related.

Yes. I had the structure scan live on. Perhaps, that was it or something similar.

I sent the file. Actually, it was a different file but with the same issue and recorded in the same timeframe. Thanks for looking into it.

I'll try the next scan with the structure live off and using the Deep water setting.

Update:

Tried 455mHz with DeepWater setting. The uploaded images into Reef Master were worse. Next step is to see if my transducer cover is the issue. I didn't think it would be a problem considering my 5Ti Elite Totalscan had a transducer cover (Hobie's underhull design). The difference may be that I bought a different transducer cover (BerleyPro 3in1), which does have a slightly different shape than the past (BerleyPro Totalscan) transducer cover I used with the Totalscan.




I plan to do three things:
-Remove the cover and run the transducer naked
-See if the old Totalscan tranducer cover will work
-Re-install my 5Ti Elite w/TotalScan and use the BerleyPro cover.

More to follow.

The issue in the file you sent me is dropped pings, likely due to a processing freeze up, and nothing to do with the transducer setup as far as I can tell. Are the issues you are getting now the same, or is this a different problem? Pics of the sidescan images will help diagnose the problem.

Partially figured out my issue.

The "Use Headings" setting can really make a mosaic look bad when traveling slower and in a kayak. I turned that off and it made a huge difference. I still have some sections that look like they are missing some pings so I'll go back to settings on my fishfinder and do some trials with that.

Is there a way I can turn "Use headings" OFF as a default? Currently, I have to go into every sonar log segment and turn it off.

See below.