Lowrance HDS 7 sonar screen goes all yellow

[Poles293]

I just bought a Crestliner Raptor 1850 with a Lowrance HDS 7 on it. So far everything worked flawlessly. I was out yesterday on Erie walleye fishing and the unit worked perfectly until we were out for a couple of hours and pulled in the rods to move further west along the fence. I pulled up the trolling motor and moved us with the main motor only hit about 32 mph cuz we were only going about a mile. The screen on the HDS went all yellow from top to bottom with the color line in the middle and some blue interference throughout the screen. it read 2 ft of water even though we were in 70 ft of water. I just thought it was because we were moving at speed and figured it would go back to reading once we slowed down but it didn't. This is the first time I couldn't get a reading at that speed.

When we stopped it still continued to read 2 ft and was all broken up solid yellow on the screen. I tried turning it off and back on but it didn't help. I visually looked at the transducer and it appeared ok, tight in the mount and looked to be the proper angle off the transom. I reached down and it felt ok too. I checked the cable on the back of the unit and it was tight. I shut it down and turned it on several times and no help. I made sure no other electronics were on like the bilge or livewell.

I finally just shut it off for about 15 minutes and when I turned it on it worked fine for the next hour of trolling. When we pulled up and headed back to the launch it again went all yellow at speed and wouldn't go back to normal when we slowed down. I didn't change any settings before it happened the first time and only tried adjusting the sensitivity manually and using the auto sensitivity with no effect.

Before I spend half the day on the phone with Lowrance I was wondering if anyone had any similar problems / solutions.

Thanks,

Mike

[ray koziatek]

yup moter interferrence , also ya runnin more than 1 unit? go to manual sensitivity,manual depth,is yer ,transducer clean? and transducer angle ..

sometimes mine works like a real fishfinder other times i swear im driving over vacent waters ...I made the mistake of buying a eagle,lorance too...oh well live and learn...

[Poles293]

I've run it with the motor before and it usually just clutters up with blue "noise" but still reads. This went all yellow and wouldn't read after I shut the motor off. I always run the sensitivity on manual and turned it up and down with no results. I did reach down in the water and wipe the ducer off with a handkerchief and it looked clean and intact when I pulled the boat out plus the angle looked correct. I will get a straight edge and check tomorrow but it looks right.

[ray koziatek]

yea it ant like its gotta be perfect i actually angle mine back a tad to show my weights and lures better..I can change my background color just by adjusting sensitivty as far as the yellow /blue goes but overall background ya gotta go to setup(sonar settings ) I think...oh dont forget manual depth setting seems like if it says 2 ft thats all it will show on screen 0-20 ft ya could be lookin at "surface clutter"

with my fishawk and sonar on i do get some goofy interference also....

[Mark Komo]

I had an issue with the HDS7 on a buddies boat this weekend. I disconnected the power supply at the back of the unit, reconnected, and it worked great. Give that a shot.

[Poles293]

Thanks I'll give that a try I was out today and same thing happened I had yellow screen with no depth reading for the first hour then it started working fine until I cranked it up to drive back in.

[Poles293]

Thanks for the input guys - all fixed it was a pinched transducer cable which must have broke a wire in it. Got it replaced and its working good as always. Thanks again