New fish finder crashed mid-season...

[Mickey Finn]

I checked my slip from Cabela's and my purchase date was 6/4/10. They have a 60 day return policy on electronics and today is day number 60. I'm heading there soon. I'd like to keep it, hoping that they would get this transducer issue corrected because I really like the unit but I'm not going to risk being stuck with a unit that has to have a new transducer every time I turn around. I've already had a couple of those. You'd think they would have put a few of these on some charter boats to be tested for a while before they put them out for us to buy. Then they could get these problems ironed out before they sell them to hundreds or thousands of boaters who are all going to end up giving them bad publicity. I've still got my lowrance unit on the boat so I'll use that for now and look at my options. Maybe they will correct this problem and I can get another one or maybe I'll just go get a Furuno 620. Maybe I can even talk myself into the Furuno 585. I don't really need the bigger screen but I like that is has double the verticle pixels over the 620 for better resolution.

[Mickey Finn]

If this is just a bad batch of tranducers as American-Honey was told, then how come guys with the 800's, 900's, 1100's aren't having the same problems? Looking at the tranducers on their web site, it looks like they all use the same transducers. Maybe those guys aren't using the duel beam transducers? Is anyone having issues with anything other than the dual beam? Billy, have you heard anything in reply to the email that you sent to them? I'd consider upgrading from my 700 series to the 800 if I thought the problem didn't exist there too but it looks to me like if I just go with a combo unit with dual beam, I'm going to end up with the same transducers that are failing.

[K Gonefishin]

Billy is in Florida with the Cannon/Hummingbird guys accorinding to his tweets. My buddy has a 898 and hasn't had any problems been running it since May and he fishes ALOT. It very well could be the software and how it interacts with the transducers.

58Johnson you should not lose bottom...ever.

[Mickey Finn]

The 898 has side imaging so he's probably using a different transducer. Mine has the transom mount dual beam transducer (XNT 9 20 T). Maybe it's just those transducers and all the guys who are not having troubles are using defferent transducers. At any rate, I'm returning it today and then I'll make a decision on what to replace it with.

[K Gonefishin]

He has the dual beam no side imaging, it's somewhat useless on the great lakes, fun to look at but doesn't help catch more fish.

[Billy V]

Sorry its taken me so long to get back to you guys on this - I've had a crazy couple of weeks on the road and haven't had a free moment to get back to this until now. I met with the Humminbird folks earlier this week and they've asked me to have each of you who've had an issue with your 700 series PM me with your first and last name and your zip code. I will forward that info to them and they will then look into each of your cases individually. They are concerned that you guys have had issues and want to personally look into it further.

[58Johnson]

58 Johnson Update:

I sent my info to Billy V and got a call immediately from Jennifer at Humminbird.

I explained that I had been able to get my 768 combo working again through a software update, redoing my electrical connections and using my old quad transducer.

Jennifer asked if she could send out a new dual band transducer just to be sure I had a good dual (I also have the quad). I thought that was a nice gesture and good insurance for the future.

She was very helpful and knowlegable. She gave me some good suggestions and followed my rambling explanation of events very well.

I'll post later if things don't continue to work out. For now, all is working and HBird has been interested and helpful in solving my issue of losing bottom.

Also, Billy V...thank you for stepping up and bringing our concerns to Humminbird's attention.

[Billy V]

Glad I could help! The folks at Humminbird are serious about making the best equipment out there and backing it up with the best level of service in the industry too. They want to know if there's something not right with one of their products - I'm glad you guys brought this up here. Turns out this situation was a software update & transducer issue that they've been able to resolve.