05-15-2020, 05:08 PM
Sorry for the slow reply. Work has been dawn till well after dusk the past couple days. I'm not sure how they do it. My guess is that since the spool is set back further into the downrigger, they are using an inductor to put a voltage on the wire. And, the auto-up feature detects when the ball is in the water by watching what the ground is doing relative to the boat. If you hook up a cannon downrigger to a battery that is otherwise disconnected from the boat ground, the auto-up feature is disabled. In fact, that's how I disabled the auto-up before installing the Scotty electrical connectors and the braided downrigger line. I would assume, but can't be sure, that disabled the "Positive Ion Control" as well, or at least made whatever voltage they are trying to put on the downrigger cable short to ground. So, between that and the math telling me that electrical fields don't propagate well under water, I'm skeptical that the PIC or black box works. I think, and the math says, it catches fishermen, not fish.