Garmin Echomap uhd 94sv Sidescan imaging issues

[dddu88]

Hi all, I have a new Garmin Echomap uhd 94sv, tried out many times in water, and I went to the Chesapeake bay last week, no matter how I adjusted the contrast or other factors for the Side Scan imaging, I have no ways to remove the noise or "snow" around the center line as indicated by the red arrows in the picture, this arrow area should be black as water column underneath the boat, and also the whole side scan imaging is fuzzy, not sure how other people can get very clear picture with black water column and can mark fish, I have never seen fish on my side scan even I can see fish on 2D sonar.
But three weeks ago I went to pat river, I took some images (the second one uploaded) when I saw fish on 2D sonar, for this image, the issue is the left side of the side scan is dark, this could be caused by not trimming up the motor enough, but the whole image is not very clear.
The settings are shown in the third picture.

The GT56UHD transducer is mounted on the right side of the transom, 12" away from the propeller diameter and a little bit below the boat bottom, nothing close to the transducer will generate bubble and has interference as shown in the 4th and 5th picture.

Any clues ?

Thanks in advance!

[dricha21]

I do not have a solution. I have 2 new 93sv on my boat over the winter. I had an issue with my rear gt54 side imaging only showing one side. Contacted Garmin and I am expecting my new xducer to be here tomorrow. I was lucky that I had a second unit that i could swap to to troubleshoot. Call Garmin and see what they say.

[DYE]

Do you have the ferrite ring installed on the cable?

[bobcoy]

ddd While I am not a Garmin guy yet. I have had 12 years experience with side imaging. Looks like electric interference. Something close to the transducer cable. If you turn some stuff off for a bit.(one thing at a time) you may find the source that way and to fix it something like moving a cable a few inches away or possibly a torride choke around the cable close to the MFD. Maybe shut the big motor off and see if it stops when the motor is not running to eliminate motor noise or try moving the transducer cable away from any motor cables. JMO Bob

[fishin couillon]

On the first pic, i'm with Bobcoy, does screen clear up when motor is turned off???

[Rh3nium]

Do you use the same battery for something else?

[TOUCH OF CLASS]

Does it do it with trolling motor only running

[dddu88]

Thanks all for your response and help, I did not realize so many factors can have an impact on how the screen looks like, I do not have trolling motor, also I installed a separate battery for fishfinder next to the original main battery, the ducer cable is bundled together with the engine cable and pass through the same hole from transom outside to inside, and then bundled together with other wires inside the same tubing on the starboard side all the way to the center console area, then vertically up through a hole to the dashboard, then loop the cable with a ferrite ring before connected to the fish finder screen unit.

So where are the issues? this is how the original fishfinder echomap 50dv was wired, if I can not wire this way, which means I have to wire from the port side, not sure if I can do that.

Any suggestions?

Thanks again for your help!

[bobcoy]

Question still remains, what is causing it? You need to isolate what is causing the interferrence? Turn the motor off and coast. do the horizontal lines disappear? If so a cable reroute is in order. You could try by cutting the cable ties holding the ducer wire tight to the motor cables. It is trial and error to get to the cause and where the issue is. Bob

[dddu88]

Yes, I need to get back to water and do some testing, turn the motor on and off and compare the side imaging screens to see if there are differences.

Also does water quality have an impact? the two side images seem look different, one has water column "snow" and the other does not have, they are from two different waters, one from the chesapeake bay with big wave, one from patuxent river with little wave.

Thanks

[bobcoy]

If you can get rid of the horizontal lines then you can start fine tuning. Bob

[dddu88]

I got some images from the past Sunday when I went to the saltwater river, when it shows low speed, the engine was off, also if there are electrical interferences, why the down image looks good, and the 2D sonar looks good as well? I called Garmin support, they said it could be the transducer is bad, they can send me another one with $450 deposit, and after they receive the old one, they will credit back to me.

IMG_0054.jpgIMG_0072.jpgIMG_0073.jpgIMG_0075.jpgIMG_9988.jpg

[dricha21]

I hate to be Mr. Obvious but have you tried to do reset sonar to default settings? I had a similar issue and that fixed it.

[dddu88]

I hate to be Mr. Obvious but have you tried to do reset sonar to default settings? I had a similar issue and that fixed it.

Thanks for your response, I did not try that reset, I will try it.
I just called garmin today again, the customer support guy also asked me to do that, and I showed all the images posted here to the customer support guy, he said everything is normal, so the garmin echomap uhd 94sv units do not have good image quality? I watched some Youtube videos, one of them is uhd 93sv, the sidevu images there in the lake seem very impressive, I wish I could get this kind of images on sidevu.

[bobcoy]

Ddd, Some of the pics do not have the interference Your gain/sensetivity is too high though. I the shots without the horizontal bars obliterating everything are with the engine off your wires run with your engine wires are causing it. Different frequencies are causing some of the differences. Do a reset and try without the engine on I am sure it will look better than it does now.

[TheBarBack]

Thanks for your response, I did not try that reset, I will try it.
I just called garmin today again, the customer support guy also asked me to do that, and I showed all the images posted here to the customer support guy, he said everything is normal, so the garmin echomap uhd 94sv units do not have good image quality? I watched some Youtube videos, one of them is uhd 93sv, the sidevu images there in the lake seem very impressive, I wish I could get this kind of images on sidevu.

I disagree on it being normal... looks like interference to me, I had better side images than you running my old 93sv plus with the 52 transducer... you should be able to get much better images.

[dddu88]

Ddd, Some of the pics do not have the interference Your gain/sensetivity is too high though. I the shots without the horizontal bars obliterating everything are with the engine off your wires run with your engine wires are causing it. Different frequencies are causing some of the differences. Do a reset and try without the engine on I am sure it will look better than it does now.

Yes, I will test on water with reset button these weekends, indeed, my ducer cable is passing through the same hole on the transom with engine power cable on the right side, then the engine power cable goes to the main battery, and the ducer cable with all other wires including the fishfinder wires connected to the dedicated fishfinder batter goes to a tubing which leads to the console. that means the ducer cable will get interference from both the engine cable and the fishfinder power wires.

To totally eliminate interferences, I need to drill another hole on the transom for the ducer cable and route it from the port side underneath the deck all the way to the console, my only concern is the location of the fuel tank, since I need to drill another hole to let the ducer cable pass into the console area from the left side, just like the current existing hole on the right side of the console, which has the tubing made by the boat manufacture wellcraft.
Thanks very much for your help!

[dddu88]

I disagree on it being normal... looks like interference to me, I had better side images than you running my old 93sv plus with the 52 transducer... you should be able to get much better images.

Thanks, that is what I think, they are not normal. you have proved it now.

[MonteSS]

Looks fairly normal to me. Maybe a lot of waves. Different waters, temps and time of year/day/hour make a huge difference.

My main fishing lake works great. Pond I fish is barely usable. Thermocline, silt, plankton, etv

[dddu88]

Looks fairly normal to me. Maybe a lot of waves. Different waters, temps and time of year/day/hour make a huge difference.

My main fishing lake works great. Pond I fish is barely usable. Thermocline, silt, plankton, etv

I used in Chesapeake Bay and its adjacent rivers, I saw some people fishing in the bay with crystal clear picture from their fishfinders, definitely the fishfinders are the major factor there for their clear pictures.