Livescope testing part 2

[Royt]

I was able to get out this morning and shoot 3 more short little videos, same location as the first video that I posted a few days ago. Main difference is I reset factory defaults on the black box.

Settings:
Factory defaults settings on black box.
Echomap.Ultra on a separate 12 volt battery
Black box on (2) 12 volt battery as per your instructions.
TVG off
Noise reject medium
Gain auto medium
Color gain auto
Forward range 40'
Depth around 30 feet if I remember correctly
Transducer on a separate mount with 8 degree cant
Results: looks the same to me as previous video. I start up with brush almost directly under the transducer and slowly back my boat with my trolling motor. Brush disappears again in the 20 to 30 foot range just as before. Water depth here lower 20's.

Video #2 attached here.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_rRdyMLxBuU

[Royt]

Video #3
Setting the same.
I now move from 30 or so feet away from the brush to almost directly over it.
Results are the same.
Video #3

[Royt]

Video #4
Settings as per Leonard's suggestions.
Settings
Gain auto high
Noise reject off
Results you can see a ghost tree which is expected but the brush continues to disappear in the same 20 to 30 foot range.
But to me the dead zone seems to have moved and has a different shape.
Not sure what to think.
Opinions?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xj_YCwH6mIU

[Royt]

[Royt]

Sorry, not sure why some link and some do not.

[Royt]

[LWINCHESTER2]

Thank you Roy for doing all this. You've made a believer out of me. You have a dead spot. Looks like Garmin's description of this as an area of "weak" returns misses the mark. You've given me examples to study where I can try to replicate it using my equipment. With Gain on High and Noise Rejection Off, you should have seen everything the unit is capable of showing. At the depth and range you are working it doesn't take a strong sonar beam to produce returns . Admittedly, I have not seen what you are seeing and I have tried hard. Even with Noise Rejection on Medium and the Gain turned down I've not been able to observe this. After I have studied these more, I would like to ask you some questions.

I have a pretty full plate right now so I don't know when I'll be able to give time to this or to my experiment to measure the width of coverage at different ranges. I have some things I'm doing with Garmin, unrelated to this, and then I insist of fishing most of my time on the water.

[Genec]

Roy, did you get the unit I got rid of ��,good video, still say it was better than the one I had, maybe now they will find how to solve the problem, no matter its in the box as i been saying for a few months

[Genec]

Wow Roy, it must have turned cold since I went there Friday, lol

[Genec]

oh no ,I miss read your post, thought you said water temperature in the 20, my mistake

[MikeF]

Nice job Royt

Hard to argue the dead spot issue with those vids.

[TOUCH OF CLASS]

Yes it’s more of a dead spot that we are dealing with and your videos show it

[LWINCHESTER2]

Roy. I have four questions.
1. What type of bottom does this area have?
2. In all the videos, except the one you did for me, the dead area looked to be a fixed size, running on an angle from the bottom up and to the right on about a 45 or maybe less. On the video you did for me, as best I could tell, it was not angled that same way. Do I have that right?
3. Are there different shapes and orientations of the dead zone, depending on depth?
4. Some say they don't see the dead zone with a soft bottom. Is that your experience? Are there places, depths, or other situations where you don't have a dead zone?

Again, I want to commend you for such outstanding videos illustrating your point. I wish you could have done this on a GPSMAP unit with ActiveCaptain so it could have captured the video, full screen, without any glare. Still, none of that changes what you have shown. Thanks again.

[Royt]

Leonard, thanks for the nice comments, I really appreciate it. Now I'll try to answer your questions as best as I can.
1. The bottom area where this brush is located is on the end of a long tapering point on a main creek channel. I assume it is a hard bottom.
2. You are correct as I noted in my post "But to me the dead zone seems to have moved and has a different shape"
I have no good explanation for this, guess I need to play with these settings more to see if this remains consistent.
3. Usually the deal zone has been a consistent shape for me in 20+ fow.
4. From what I've seen I see less of a dead zone in water under 20' and with a soft bottom. Usually in areas further back in the creeks
I agree I wish that my Ultra unit could record with ActiveCaptain, the sun was really bright today and the glare was bad.
Thanks,
Roy

[pfisher]

Thank you Roy for doing all this. You've made a believer out of me. You have a dead spot. Looks like Garmin's description of this as an area of "weak" returns misses the mark. You've given me examples to study where I can try to replicate it using my equipment. With Gain on High and Noise Rejection Off, you should have seen everything the unit is capable of showing. At the depth and range you are working it doesn't take a strong sonar beam to produce returns . Admittedly, I have not seen what you are seeing and I have tried hard. Even with Noise Rejection on Medium and the Gain turned down I've not been able to observe this. After I have studied these more, I would like to ask you some questions.

I have a pretty full plate right now so I don't know when I'll be able to give time to this or to my experiment to measure the width of coverage at different ranges. I have some things I'm doing with Garmin, unrelated to this, and then I insist of fishing most of my time on the water.

So all the videos and pics hadn't convinced you??

[pfisher]

I was able to get out this morning and shoot 3 more short little videos, same location as the first video that I posted a few days ago. Main difference is I reset factory defaults on the black box.

Settings:
Factory defaults settings on black box.
Echomap.Ultra on a separate 12 volt battery
Black box on (2) 12 volt battery as per your instructions.
TVG off
Noise reject medium
Gain auto medium
Color gain auto
Forward range 40'
Depth around 30 feet if I remember correctly
Transducer on a separate mount with 8 degree cant
Results: looks the same to me as previous video. I start up with brush almost directly under the transducer and slowly back my boat with my trolling motor. Brush disappears again in the 20 to 30 foot range just as before. Water depth here lower 20's.

Video #2 attached here.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_rRdyMLxBuU

Mine is the same way. Numerous videos have been sent to garmin using various setup and different equipment. Folks that say they don't have a dead spot are either dang lucky or just using it in a way they don't notice it.

[LWINCHESTER2]

So all the videos and pics hadn't convinced you??

Correct. From what I saw the other videos and pics did not make the case to prove the dead spot. They illustrated the possibility of a dead spot. It was one explanation for what they were not seeing. I think Roy proved it. He clinched it by showing the boat icon that allowed whoever was watching the video to see the rotation. I did believe that several people were having an area that did not show returns and they expected something to be displayed. There could be a number of explanations for this. I had some difficulty determining where this dead spot was supposed to be. In my testing I was always able to find my jigs from 10 ft deep to deep water when I could exercise enough control on the rotation. I couldn't even demonstrate what Garmin was admitting to in terms of a "weak area" even when they pointed out the settings to use and distance to look for it. Every time, I could see the jigs, with finese rotation. That made me wonder if the shape of the coverage (hourglass) had something to do with it. Roy's videos eliminated that as an explanation. Different people put the dead spot at different places. Some said directly under the boat, others at different distances. When you identified it in one of my pics, that didn't add up. A jagged edge, dead on the bottom in an area of lots of big jagged rocks could possibly be, but also could just be another rock. So where is this dead spot. Just on the bottom, up in the water column, how far up in the water column. With Roy's examples, I now have specific details I can try to replicate. He was in about 21-22 FOW. The brush came up off the bottom almost 10 ft. The dead spot was between 10-20 ft away. This is not where Garmin said the weak area was. In fact Roy had great returns at that distance. When Roy used the settings I suggested, with High Gain and No Noise Rejection, showing the ghost tree, showing the rotation, IMO that is when he hit the bull's eye. That eliminated quiet a few other theoretical explanations. There should not be a weak area with these settings. So maybe I'm a slow learner. I'm still hung up on seeing jigs hanging under a floating jug. But now I can deal with that with more precision.

[jim mitchell]

I said I wasn't going to comment on this anymore but Royt's videos finally showed the trouble that I'm having only I'm not fishing brush piles It happens on standing timber and in open water when I'm chasing fish . My lake is soft mud bottom and I fish mainly less than 20' ft . Timber disappears from bottom up and jig also when in the so called weak zone . Bait balls and fish fade and disappear when entering weak zone then reappear after passing through weak zone . Garmin replaced my equipment and I use a GPSMAP8610xsv. None of this happened before perspective mode which I will never use . Just wonder how many people will use perspective mode Not many people I know will use that mode .

[DonnieG]

Roy, what is the next step? Is Garmin through testing or is there more to come? Very informative videos...

[Genec]

From what I always see in mine the dead zone is about where the bottom is and curve the same distance going to the top with another one splitting off from the same one going on a angle straight with out a curve, if you have a hard stump or rock a little in front of you then you sometimes get another weak signal at that distance also, that is why I have been saying that if I got in deep water 50 plus feet I could then follow my jig all the way in on a 40 feet cast whether I let it go down 10 feet or 20 feet, again I say in the box it tries to do away with ghost tree by weaken the signal, may not be the intent of Garmin but it does weaken the signal, and that is why I say if it was a way to weaken the bottom ducer only then it would not have as weak of return signal coming back from the forward range, I have put a slanted shield on just the bottom ducer that seems to have helped mine however this unit was already better than my old one so not yet sure how much it would have helped on the old one but I think it would have helped some, I have been testing it out on this one but it is so hot that I don't play with it much, will when it cool down