BBFF1 & M260 HF problem

A

Anonymous

Guest
I've had a M260 feeding my Navnets since 2006 - never an issue except for topping off the non-tox a couple of times. This year it sprung a leak and since it was almost impossible to reach I had the Marina reseat the box. They did what seemed like a nice clean job with 5200. It no longer leaks.

But - I got on the boat last week once it was "done", and I get no depth. Figure they just did not top it off, so I made sure it was filled. Still nothing. I go fishing Thursday, no depth reading, but I fiddle around in 80' or so and in manual (I almost always use Auto/Fishing) I can get bottom if I crank the gain up to 80+. Well, I can see a decent bottom picture, but no depth number displayed on the screen dedicated to FF, and no depth on the data field on my other screen. "Auto" returns absolutely nothing.

Fiddled all day today - I tried switching to LF, and that works. Whoopie. Works fine in auto mode, depth displayed on both screens. But HF is still fubar. If I display as two frequencies, LF is fine, HF is dead.

Any thoughts on where to poke next?

Thanks.

PDR
 
When you have the BFF1 set to the HF do you hear a faint clicking sound coming M260 transducer? This is an indication that the transducer is "firing" a signal.
 
I''ll check that next time I get down to the boat - we have some weather rolling through today here in NY.

Thanks.
 
Finally got back to boat - I set it on both HF and LF, TD is hard to get real close to, but I was no more than 2' from it and heard no obvious clicking (then again, not sure how "faint" the sound would be). Ran the boat yesterday and while LF does paint a picture, it does not seem real healthy - loses bottom, constantly seems to struggle to settle into "auto" mode, etc.

I have plenty of Airmar cable neatly coiled back near the TD. Would it isolate the issue to either the install or the TD if I were to pull the TD out of the case and suspend it over the side in the water? If it works, the problem is the case install, if it doesn't , something is sick with the TD?

Thanks.

Still caught fish btw, maybe I'll go the lead line route and become a purist...
 
PDR,
The quickest way to determine if you have a transducer issue or not is just to hang another transducer over the side of the vessel at the dock. That way you can compare the returns from both transducers.

Snips
 
Thanks - I had suggested just that to my electronics guy (as mentioned earlier, I just can't reach the damn thing). He took a look and I got back "Working now. Had to adjust the way the TD lays in the box". Still not sure what that means, since the TD seems to just screw down on the box, but it now works and I am happy.

Lesson learned: never have electronics installed where it is virtually impossible to access them....
 
Back
Top