Bottom Line Tournament 1101 Fish finder not seeing the bottom or fish

[petermb72]

I have had this since last spring and it is installed on a fiberglass transom and worked fine all last year. I put the boat in the water this spring and I get the water temp, but I do not get the bottom or the fish or any depth at all. All I get on my screen is the water temp and the depth setting. I have tried just about every setting change there is on this little unit (which is not many) and it does not seem to work. It passes its self check every time, works in demo mode, just does not want to detect the bottom. I felt under the transom and the transducer is not smashed up and it seems to be clear of debree. I have not scrubbed it down with a cleaner yet, but I am not sure that would do it. I cannot find the website for bottom-line, and from the looks of it, they were bought out by hummingbird. So there is no help out there. It was a great unit for what fishing and boating the family and I used it. I feel a little blind now with it not working. any help would be great.

Peter

 

[Boatist]

Re: Bottom Line Tournament 1101 Fish finder not seeing the bottom or fish

I do not know the unit at all but it is the same as troubleshooting most depth finders.

The first step is to pull the plugs off the back of the unit for power and the transducer. Look at the pins are they bright and shinny? If there green or corroded then pull the fuse to the power and clean the pin until bright and shinny. Check both the unit and the cables. If that all looks good then hook up both cables and reinstall the fuse. Check the battery voltage to the unit for 12.6 volts or more.

Next thing I would do is turn up the sensitivy. With the unit on put your hand or foot under and transducer and see if you can feel or here the tansducer sending out pulses. If yes then make sure transducer is pointing straight down. Next clean the transducer with a soft cloth and some dish liquid soap.

If can not feel the pluses going out then make sure the pulse is not set to stop.

Look in the book and set to factory defaults.

good luck

 

[fishrdan]

Re: Bottom Line Tournament 1101 Fish finder not seeing the bottom or fish

Do a google search on BottomLine, they were having problems before the buy-out.

If you can fix it by cleaning and re-seating cables like Boatist mentioned, cool. But I wouldn't stick any money into fixing the BottomLine, especially since the transducer is probably 1/2 the cost of the entire unit.

I picked up a BottomLine 480 Max at BPS for $70 last fall, second sonar on my boat. It's an,,, OK unit, but I wouldn't want it as my primary sonar, poor quality in several areas. I wanted it for displaying depth while trolling and it serves this purpose well.

 

[petermb72]

Re: Bottom Line Tournament 1101 Fish finder not seeing the bottom or fish

Thanks guys,
I got this as a gift from my wife. I will try the dish soap. I did disconnect the plug from the back of the unit. It looked fine. The unit has a voltage meter on it and it seems to be over 12 v everytime. I am not sure there is a fuse, but if there were and it was bad, I would assume that the depth finder would not register the temp. I will feel for any vibrations to see if they are there next time I am at the lake. The water is a bit cool still still, so I will have to take out the waders to check it out.

Thanks again,
Peter

 

[fishrdan]

Re: Bottom Line Tournament 1101 Fish finder not seeing the bottom or fish

With the boat out of the water, feel and listen to the transducer, it should be making a clicking noise.

After pulling my boat I can tell is I left the sonar on from the clicking noise coming from the transducer. It's not that loud, but I can hear it from 1-2 feet away,,, IE hooking up the transom tie downs.

 

[petermb72]

Re: Bottom Line Tournament 1101 Fish finder not seeing the bottom or fish

Thanks,
I will check that out when I go down to the lake. I assume if no noise and the transducer is clean, then there is some major problems. Well, at least it gives the water temp!

Peter

 

[Boatist]

Re: Bottom Line Tournament 1101 Fish finder not seeing the bottom or fish

Again I do not know your unit but almost all units I hav used have a scroll speed and it can be set to stop. If it is it will send out no pulses.

The reason I mentioned the fuse is if you were cleaning the pins with some type of wire brush you want no power on the pins so pull the fuse first.

Transducers do fail but most I have seen fail are cricked crystals and they become flaky but still work some of the time.

My transducer I can feel and here when it quite.