Depth Sounder

[mike baker]

Please excuse the wrong "Message Icon" on the previous message.  I ment this to be a question.

“Gray Hawk” (#815 w/wing keel) has the original Kenyon depth and knot instrumentation that was installed by the original dealer, I guess.  We have only owned the boat 2 years, so I don’t know the complete history.  The knot meter works fine, but I have no confidence in the depth sounder.  When we are in relatively shallow water it will show 5.7’ constantly.  I don’t remember it ever showing less, even when I knew we were in shallower water.  As near as I can tell it displays the proper depth in deeper water.  Its minimum seems to be 5.7’.  Before I install a new sounder, does anyone have any ideas as to what might be wrong with the old one and can it be corrected?

Mike Baker #815 "Gray Hawk"

[Gary Wilson]

I had a similar experience with our boat shortly after we bought it.  It had a Coastal Navigator depth sounder.  I discovered that it would not read less that 8 feet when our keel hit bottom.

Turns out it had an adjustment relating to the alarm.  If you allow it to read shallower and have the alarm on, I gives a lot of false alarms.