I recently bought a Lowrance hook2 12 inch fish finder. I put a platinum + marine card in it and the lag is terrible. Is there anything I can do to improve the lag?

SOURCE: False fish readings

False fish readings are commonly caused by electrical interference such as alternator noise, and by air bubbles flowing across transducer.

For starters make sure your fishfinder is on an independent circuit and not on one powered by your ignition switch. In other words, you should be able to turn your fishfinder on, even though the engine is turned off. Ideally the fishfinder should be wired directly to the battery with an in line fuse.

Try running the boat at a speed slightly higher than trolling speed, then kill the engine, as the boat slows down to trolling speed do you still see false echos? If yes then the problem probably lies with how the transducer is mounted, or where it is located on the hull.

If you don't see the false echos when the engine is off, it may be necessary to reroute the transducer cable to keep it away from the boat's ignition wires. You can get transducer extension cables if necessary. Also there are filters that you can buy that suppress alternator noise buy attaching between the battery and the engine.

Another common cause of false echos from electrical interference is a transducer cable that has been cut and spliced.

I hope this information helps. Please reply if you have any questions about my response.

Jerry Greenberg

• 1691 Answers
• Posted on Apr 20, 2008

SOURCE: fish finder L36HG. Also

Most likely the fish finder's clocking pulses or drive pulses are radiating to the radio.

You have to determine if the radiation is coming from the power distribution or radiating over the air to the radio's antenna.

You should get an experienced marine communications engineer to go to the boat and see exactly what is going on. He can then run some tests to determine the best plan of action to take.

Jerry G.

SOURCE: brought a boat with lowrance x24 no manual with it

Here's a link where you can download the manual..
http://www.retrevo.com/search/v2/jsp/mytrevo/myTrevo.jsp?page=man
Good luck & have fun. If this helps you plz rate this 'fixya' for me. Thank you kindly.

SOURCE: How do you get the fish to show up on the screen

Are you looking for the little fish symbols?
Press MENU, down arrow to SONAR FEATURES and press ENT. Arrow to FISH SYMBOLS and press ENT. Press EXIT twice. Any significant return in the water will now show up as a fish symbol.

Are you looking for the fish arches?
You won't get any arches unless the boat is moving and of course there are fish passing within the transducers signal. The shallower the water, the less area you are covering and less likely to get a fish return.

There is an OK guide to understanding what you see on the sonar screen at the link below. It if pretty technical but parts of it may help you out.

http://primus.lowrance.com/support/resultDisplay.do?gotoLink=5&docType=1000&contextId=351%3A5.47%2C11918.11930%2C22.47&clusterName=ClusterPublic&lang=english&docset=%2FDocuments%2FSonar&contentId=9de88fa2-0b60-4b44-a470-29ee14767b3e&responseId=135ccbe2cfd4f608%3A1fe88d%3A122773df7e0%3A7c2&groupId=4&answerGroup=1&score=981&page=http%3A%2F%2Fprimus.lowrance.com%2Ficr%2FSonar%2FChart+Tutorial.htm&result=0&excerpt=Chart+Tutorial+Deciphering+Sonar+Charts.&question=chart+tutorial&resultType=5000#Goto5

An X96 owners manual can be downloaded from http://www.lowrance.com/en/Downloads/Manuals/

SOURCE: how to splice cables for my fish finder

Man, As much as I hate to say it, you need to call up Lawrance and order a new one. I have tried but have never been able to repair cut transducer cables.