Simrad water depth chart display

lakelifeMN

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Help me Boaty-one Kenobi your my only hope. I am having difficulties trying to get the Simrad on the boat to display the lake map with depths. I was out on the boat yesterday and all it showed was a yellow background. I went to advanced map settings and tried Navionics and C-Map insight (which looked like an 8-bit old Nintendo display of blue squares for water and yellow squares for land). The other two settings didn't even see that I was on the water. I also downloaded the Simrad app which worked perfectly and gave me all the depth readings (the lake our slip is on is new to us and has many shallow spots. I connected it to my Wifi at home and made sure it was the most updated version. I watched some generic tutorials on how to do it by going to the advanced map settings but nothing seems to work.
1621277498178.png
This is from the app and this is what I would love if my Simrad on the boat would do.

Stupid noob question...
1. Out of the box does the standard Simrad maps have this feature or is that only if I buy a nav chip?
2. If I should have this available how do I set it up?
3. Any other tips or tricks for water charts/Simrad customizing?
4. If anyone has some links to videos they found helpful customizing the Bennington Simrad please post the link here for all us noobs to learn from (CLDave still looking forward to your walkthrough ;) )

I'm not a fisherman so I don't worry about the down scan or side scan but seeing as I will be checking out a few different lakes it would be nice to have the depth maps so I know where to avoid. Thanks everyone!
 
Dumb question. Did you zoom in on the map? If zoomed out it may not display the numbers.
 
Dumb question. Did you zoom in on the map? If zoomed out it may not display the numbers.
I tried zooming in, out and moving around as much as I could. I would have thought it should be like the phone and find where I am. It just showed brown land when I was out on the water. I don’t think it even found I was on the lake.
 
Help me Boaty-one Kenobi your my only hope. I am having difficulties trying to get the Simrad on the boat to display the lake map with depths. I was out on the boat yesterday and all it showed was a yellow background. I went to advanced map settings and tried Navionics and C-Map insight (which looked like an 8-bit old Nintendo display of blue squares for water and yellow squares for land). The other two settings didn't even see that I was on the water. I also downloaded the Simrad app which worked perfectly and gave me all the depth readings (the lake our slip is on is new to us and has many shallow spots. I connected it to my Wifi at home and made sure it was the most updated version. I watched some generic tutorials on how to do it by going to the advanced map settings but nothing seems to work.
View attachment 29986
This is from the app and this is what I would love if my Simrad on the boat would do.

Stupid noob question...
1. Out of the box does the standard Simrad maps have this feature or is that only if I buy a nav chip?
2. If I should have this available how do I set it up?
3. Any other tips or tricks for water charts/Simrad customizing?
4. If anyone has some links to videos they found helpful customizing the Bennington Simrad please post the link here for all us noobs to learn from (CLDave still looking forward to your walkthrough ;) )

I'm not a fisherman so I don't worry about the down scan or side scan but seeing as I will be checking out a few different lakes it would be nice to have the depth maps so I know where to avoid. Thanks everyone!
I just KNEW someone would call me out on this lol! I'm still planning a walk-through, and I just got the boat on the water this weekend. Spent the whole time installing new underwater lights (doing a writeup on that too). Unfortunately, family commitments mean that I probably won't be back up to the cabin/boat for at least a few weeks.

If I remember correctly, there are 3 different maps settings - I didn't end up using the Navionics option, as I liked the looks of the other - CMAP I think - better. You may need to run an update on the software to get the most recent maps.

To answer directly -

1. out of the box the SimRad does have maps and GPS.
2. I just tinkered and figured it out - may need to update software
3. Grab a beer and start poking around. You won't break it.
4. Here's a good start:
 
I have a Nube question while we were talking about this. Not sure if I ever saw it working currently but my side scan doesn’t really do anything. Does it come standard with side scan or is it an upgrade of some sort that I actually don’t have?
 
I have a Nube question while we were talking about this. Not sure if I ever saw it working currently but my side scan doesn’t really do anything. Does it come standard with side scan or is it an upgrade of some sort that I actually don’t have?
Pretty sure you don't have it - but you can add if you really want it :)
 
No need, just wasn’t sure if it was in operable. I do not want to be part of the underwater recovery of anything! LOL
Thanks for responding, I couldn’t remember if I had ever seen it work or not!
 
Side scan does not come standard. That is an add on feature.
 
First confirm your transducer has the Active imaging / Totalscan or whatever they call the side scan. Benny may have provided a basic transducer instead, so you'll need to upgrade it - looks like $300.

If you do have the correct TD, side scan apparently won't work on certain Simrad models if CHIRP is also running. Do a search on THT, apparently a common problem. Set the echo to a non-chirp frequency (83 or 200khz) and it should allow the sidescan to work. I'm guessing the transducer or headunit doesnt have the processing power to sort it all out.
 
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Here’s what mine is doing. If I zoom out 5 miles or more it shows the lakes in my area.
1622127176618.jpeg
Then if I hit the zoom button or pinch to zoom it just goes brown.
1622127242537.jpeg
I hit clear cursor and checked that it was on C-map but nothing seems to cooperate. Any thoughts or suggestions would be welcomed. Thanks all!
 
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Lakelife - solution is to buy a Garmin! :cool: j/k

A hard reset is sometimes the magic bullet, but also just trial-and-error with the settings as others have mentioned. If the chip is compatible with the unit (big if), then it's likely just a setting buried in the menus.

A few links below might help, but I would also highly encourage a search on other boating forums like THT if not already. There are exponentially more users on those sites so your chances of finding the solution are much better than here. I say this with all due respect to the ownership group here, but once you get into motor and electronics issues I don't think that's our sweet spot (myself included). We can talk toons, props and furniture for days though.


 
There was a Simrad update on 5/25/2021. Below is a description of the update.

"Introducing our biggest cartography update ever, featuring the latest charts, new styling, custom depth shading, and more exciting functionality to come. We’re adding a bunch of updates to our premium offering too - which our existing subscribers will get at no extra cost. Also a bug fix release…"
 
Is that an exclamation point At the top left of the screen next to the GPS signal?
looks like you might’ve had a file transfer problem and need to complete the download or update. Hopefully that might be the issue.



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