898 quit reading depth.

[big_o_tom]

I had this 898 on the front of my Allison for a few years then swapped it out for a 899. The whole time it was on the boat it worked fine. Then I put it on a jon boat to use in the bay in florida. Three trips to florida so far and a few trips locally it has worked fine. Last trip to Florida was the 1st week of October and it worked fine. Took the boat out last weekend just to run some fresh gas through it and the graph wouldn't read the depth.
The unit has been unplugged and in the garage since October, I went through the settings to make sure the sonar option was on and it was. Is it a bad transducer? Do they just go bad all of the sudden?

[Data1960]

Tom, transducers do wear out over time. Do you have the correct transducer selected in your sonar settings (83/200? DI? SI?)? Can you hear the transducer pinging when its out of the water? Do you have another Humminbird unit to connect to the transducer to see if it works or connect your 898 to a different transducer to confirm the 898 is working? Make sure your cable connections are well seated/connected to the unit. Good luck.

[big_o_tom]

I can do all of those things. I think the tranducer settings has 3 options, 1 band, the other band and then both. I think that I have both selected.

[Wayne P.]

Restore Defaults and the unit will be set to its standard transducer which is the Hi-Def Sidescan

[big_o_tom]

I found the problem! I had moved the boat outside the garage and put a tarp on it. Well, apparently a squirrel or mouse got in it and chewed up the transducer cable. Seems like I tried to fix a cable years ago but I don't remember how it turned out. Are they repairable?

[big_o_tom]

Spent about an hour trying to repair the cable. Powered the unit up and heard the transducer pinging away!