bucky123

thanks for the reply wayne Not yet. I cant remember if I set up an account with humminbird. I'll go check now

My unit is intermittent on the depth. GPS works ok and the temp works ok but the depth will jump around from accurate reading to maybe 10 times the actual depth. example; it will show in the digital window in 5 feet of water 5 feet for 3 to 5 seconds and then all of a sudden will jump to 65 feet then a few seconds later it will go back to 5 feet and back and fourth. The diplay, in depth mode, looks like large pixels with bad resolution. The gps function and the digital readout screens look clear and normal. I have a 525 humminbird and hooked the transducer of it to the 581 and it does the same with depth but the temp works fine I know the 525 is probably not compatable with the 581 as the 581 has Di and 26 degree dual beam and the 525 has a 20 degree beam but I still feel like the head of the 581 is the culpret. Anybody had any of thexe issues? Suggestions? Think this mqay be a soft or firmware issue mabe reflash the eprom? thanks zz

Is the transducer what gives the depthfinder its scanning width? For example if I have a depth finder that has a 20 degree beam width can I by a 60 degree beam transducer to increase its the bottom scan? Will it change anything? Just wondering.

Ok so I bought the above. the question I have is not with the down imaging its with the sonar coverage. the box says on outside says 581i combo with a sticker that says Free DI Included. The sonar coverage of 60 and 20 degrees is advertised on the outside of the box also. when I read the PDF instruction manual it says the sonar is 28 and 16 degrees on the DI model. I'm going to assume that this finder has had a software update to include DI because of the "after thought" sticker. but does anyone know about the sonar coverage? I was hoping for the 60 degree beam cuz I 99% of the time fish a 100 acre lake that is no deeper than 25 fet deep and averages 14 to 18 feet.