Uploads to Navionics

[Onvacation]

Hello.  Every time I head out on a local lake or pond, which to this point, have not been charged, I record my day to upload it to Navionics.  I would say that I have about an 80% success rate which for obvious reasons, I would like to improve.  I am using a Helix 5 DI which is set up using a Fishfindermounts.com mounting system to keep it portable. This means that the transducer is mounted temporarily using one of their magnetic mounting brackets.

 I always mount it in the same location and pay extra attention to mounting it well below the water line and parallel with the bottom.  However, as I stated, about 20% of the time, my upload fails due to either, too short of a file (meaning it is not recording my whole trip), or failure to read the depth properly.  

My Humminbird works perfectly during the day and I get "record" blinking as well.  Yet I don't always get the record file and I sometimes get the corrupt file message.

Any ideas on how I can resolve this issue? My first thought is the transducer which is mounted about 8" below the water line..Is it too shallow? I started mounting it deeper after my inexperience showed me how small waves and movement of the boatimpact the readings

[Wayne P.]

Two things have to be avoided or you get corrupted recordings.

1. The depth readout has to be real, not affected by quick changes in depth caused by the transducer being kicked up by some object like a stump, loosing water contact, or hull rocking/large waves.

2. The depth has to be actual depth, not a readout that is caused by being too shallow with the Sensitivity set too high, and the unit can't figure out what the depth is. That can also happen when above thick vegetation also. Sometimes you get a depth readout that is hundreds or thousands of feet or no depth reading.

At a minimum adjust the Sensitivity to the lowest setting that will produce a depth reading and use the Switchfire Clear setting.

When recording, do it in 15-30 minute segments so it any of the above happens, you don't loose a lot of recorded data.

I have uploaded way over 200 recordings (stopped counting) to the Sonar Charts program, so I have experienced just about everything that can go wrong when collecting the data.

Additionally if you are collecting data on a body of water that has no outline on Navionics data base or the shoreline is not accurate and your track is shown on land, it takes longer to produce the contour map since Navionics has to create or re-draw the shoreline (zero line) to apply all your data.

 

 

 

 

 

[Wayne P.]

Save all your recordings in a file and you can use them if you want to try the Lakemaster Auto Chart software. I keep all of mine on USB thumb drives.