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I bought a new Hummingbird ice helix 5 chirp GPS G2. And a transducer for my boat. And have had nothing but frustration using it. Nearly $500 bucks for garbage. It quit reading the other day between moving from one lake to the other. Just reads 0.0 feet depth. I hate their internet site. It is the worst I have ever dealt with in 30 years on the computer. But I had to send my transducer back to them. So now I'm going to Strawberry and planning to hook my boat transducer that I never mounted on my boat and use that through the ice. I've said this before. I seen this YouTube video from a paid Hummingbird rep. That said he goes by the 80/20 rule. 80% of the people only know how to use 20 % of their fish finder. He seemed proud of this. Like he was so superior to us. And if you download a owners manual. And it is not simple, there is only one that covers all there hundreds of fish finders and you have to decide yourself what pertains to your unit. I still don't know what I can do, like do I have side finder when I switch to my boat transducer? Don't buy Humminbird.
That's all I can say.
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I talked to a rep today and before he would help me, he already had my serial number, I had to hang up and send him my emai! Proof that I bought it. Amazon helped me with that. And then they sent me a shipping label for my transducer.l. I still am not sure if is just the transducer. The rep said I should have called while I was out on the ice.
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Does it have event log in the settings, that might tell you something, and can you turn the transducer off in the settings, just a few things that I know my son's Garmin can do.
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Just bought the same unit and really like it for ice fishing. I did watch a lot of YouTube videos to find the best settings because it is a beast to configure compared to my Ice55. Also, a lot of the YouTube videos are for the Helix7, but that's the same thing basically.
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I watched all the YouTube video also. Good thing, these are quit complicated. I hooked up the boat transducer that I haven't mounted on my boat yet. And I will try it at Strawberry in Utah. I'm staying at the lodge at Strawberry Monday.
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Sorry your having so much problem with your Humminbird, can't help you on the helix 5 chirp but I know the last time I called their customer service they were very helpful and the solution they told me, fixed my issue. Hope your boat transducer works for you at Strawberry. I know for years I used my boat transducer for ice fishing and it worked great, just use it in fishfinder mode and not flasher mode.
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The first rep. I talked two wanted to help me, but he said I had to be on the ice with the transducer in the water. Then he wanted my proof that I bought it. So when I called back after proving that I bought it I got a lady and she sent me the return label to send my transducer back. It is so complicated and trying to figure it out with the owners manual was frustrating. Good thing there is a lot of You Tube video of other people using it. I'm finely figuring it out. I never thought about the flasher not being able to work with the boat transducer. But I don't really like the flasher anyway. I know other ice fishermen love them. My brother just backed out on going with me. Not sure if I want to go that far by myself.
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That's pretty crazy, they never as me for proof I bought one but then again I wasn't asking about replacing a transducer either, I was just trying to find out what would happen if I went back to the factory setting. I was worried about losing my waypoint settings. I could not get the different view setting to work, once i hit reset they started working again. I don't know for certain if the flasher would not being able to work with the boat transducer. But if that is not the problem you are having, try resetting to factory setting and see if that will work.
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Resetting the factory settings was the first thing I tried when it wouldn't work. I haven't even tried the GPS part of my Helix 5 yet. Except to try and download the Free map of Blackfoot Reservoir they offered. That was my first frustrating experience and what gave me the bad opinion of Humminbird. I still haven't been back on line to try and do that again. Maybe today.
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