Humminbird 900 series continuous recording

[ChrisPreece]

Just thought I would start off with one of those catchy titles that would grab everyones attention. As it happens.....I have some good information.

I spoke to (us UK-types don't speak 'with' people for some reason) a chap at JohnsonOutdoors, who either own or represent Humminbird. The news is that the 997 and the 797 (?) both have continuous recording......hurrah! What is more, although they wouldn't make any promises, somebody could be looking at the 'data stream' option, with a view to a software upgrade/patch later on in the year.....maybe.

The UK may have the 797 very soon, with the 997 to follow in early March. Seeing as we, the inhabitants of this island, are always last to get anything I would imagine some people in the States are already unwrapping theirs!!

[Unregistered]

Chris:

What is the difference between 'continuous' recording and 'data stream'?

Bryan

[ChrisPreece]

Recording.......

As far as I'm aware what Humminbird are to provide (on to two models mentioned) is.....the facility to continuously record data, internal to the system......so, straight onto the SD card. The 'stream data' option, which isn't guaranteed (they just said they were looking at it) might be where a recording device (say a laptop) is hooked up to one of the comms ports....and the data goes there rather than to the card.

Chris

[Bryan]

recording options on 997c

I too talked with the technical people at Humminbird about the communications capabilities of the 997c. The ethernet reference is for downloading - say from the internet (which I assume means under some computer's control). The US office person wasn't aware of the exchange ('data-streaming') in the other direction but will get back to me.

I asked about how long the card would last at full-resolution and she thought about 4-5 hours on a 1Gb card. Pretty impressive I think.

[ChrisPreece]

What you get told usually depends on who you get hold of at the other end I suppose......I just took a lead from the general forum conversation over the past couple of weeks and thought I would e-mail somebody at Humminbird via the 'contact us' route and ask what might be going on. As it happens my enquiry must have made it to somebody technically aware, as the reply included 'real' information. Not only that....the US chaps had their man in the UK e-mail me as well, so I received 'double helpings' so to speak!!

Being a 981c owner/operator I'm not sure whether I can actually justify the additional expense of purchasing a 997.....so I imagine I'm either going to have to 'make do' with what I've got or hang around for a bit of 'software enabling' on the communications front. I'm also not sure, being a seaborne/towfish type whether the 800kHz system (I think I said 600kHz somewhere else....wrong!) would like the 26metres of cable I need to have attached to it, in order to stabilise the results in choppy water.

[Bryan]

any updates on streaming a H 997c?

Hi:

I've been busy with other things and have just returned to the conversation about streaming the 997c output to a computer.

Has anyone heard any more in the last few months whether Humminbird is actually going to offer this capability?

[rgecy]

As of right now, I have not heard of any plans. I have been in contact with the Humminbird Customer Service for several months in regards to the new recording capabilities for the 987c. I do not forsee the m coming up with anything that streams the data to a computer, but it could be likely that they offer a software package for data playback.

I think it will be up to some of the gurus here to see if they cant write some software that will tap into the 987 or 997's transducer and capture the incoming data.

Its beyond my experties, but I think it can be done. What if we just said forget about the control unit and tried to use the transducer alone (or at least capture the data before it gets back to the unit). This way, we are recieving the raw signal and can process it without having to use system resources.

Has anyone here ever written any sofware capture and display side scan sonar data? Shouldn't it be straight forward to just tap into the incoming signal and display it through computer software, or is the signal encoded?

Robert in SC

[Bryan]

I suggest the first thing to do is look at the wiring diagram between the transducer and the control unit. What can we deduce about how the transducer is feeding the controller - analog/digital? Where's the sync pulse coming from? etc. Do you have an electronic engineer available to you?

Bryan

[hertsog]

Which software to use for show continuous recording .son files on PC ?

[rgecy]

No software as of yet to play back files from the 900 series! But maybe we can get some of the experts to figure it out!

[Pcolaboy]

I downloaded the continuous record update for my 987c SI and I cannot find any usefullness for the images that are recorded. In other words, I made several passes at slow speed (3 mph) over a 400 foot long freighter. No matter how I adjusted the ping rate, I ended up with only a giant blob.

When making the same pass while not in record mode, I get the highly detailed image of the wreck as normal.

I called Humminbird's Customer Service line and was utterly dissappointed by the lack of support and lack of the reps knowledge. She must have said, "It's just a matter of interpretation" 50 times like a broken record.

Other than that, I'm very happy with this unit.

Pcolaboy

[Unregistered]

No software as of yet to play back files from the 900 series! But maybe we can get some of the experts to figure it out!

Hey Robert !

If someone can get information on how the data can be parsed from the .son file, I'm pretty sure I can whip-up a viewer application using Visual Basic or C#.

Pcola

[rgecy]

Scott,

There has to be something wrong with your unit if the playback is as bad as you say and its slowing down. Mine is working great and the recorded image is as good as the live.

As for the viewer, I think we just need someone to cut into the data stream coming back from the SS transducer and plug it into some side scan display software. If its that simple? I don't know if there is any encrypted data or not, but I think we just need somebody to reverse engineer it. Or talk with Humminbird andget them to create some software to play back on the computer. Basically an emulator.

If we get enough people to send some emails in, maybe we can get them to release a software viewer. I actually heard it was being looked at, but haven' checked back with them. Lets bombard them with some emails and see what happens

I have an extra transducer that I was supposed to make a towfish from. I was going to cut into the cable anyway, so why not plug it in and jumper some outputs off the wires and see whats there.

If anyone has any knowledge of what to do from there or some software that will display what is being output, let me know. I would also be willing to send the transducer to someone who knows what they are doing, as long as I get it back.

[Unregistered]

Side Imaging Recording

FYI

The speed of the recording depends on the quality of the SD card. The SanDisk Ultra cards work well with almost no slowdown of the sonar.

The only reason to slow the ping rate is to get more recording time (at the cost of lower resolution).

To make sure everyone understands - software updates are available so that the 987 and the 981 can support recording.

There is no support yet for continuous recording on a computer. It is being considered.

The cable going from the unit to the transducer is analog (high voltage transmit (over 1kv) and small signal receive. Be careful not to hurt your measurement equipment. If you want to entend the cable use low capacitance cable (< 15pf/foot) like Belden 9730 or Alpha 6073c. Make sure the individual shielded pairs are insulated and individually shielded at the splices and then waterproofed.

[uvbraze]

Sonar File Viewer

All,
Just in case your interested, there's a project that I've been involved in for awhile now over on the "Unofficial Humminbird Site" that is gaining popularity.

http://www.xumba.scholleco.com/viewt...ftware&start=0

If the link fails, just go to the site and under "General" you'll find the "Software for viewing humminbird sonar logs". Even if your not a programmer your input is valuable.

peace

Ray
(uvbraze)