I've been hearing you guys talk about this side imaging as well as looking at the pictures of the bottom with fish and after talking to some people who use them, I ordered me a 997 today with all the bells and whistles, now if I can learn to use it when it gets here.

Kool congrats 

scott i heard of way you can run two transducers through a switch that will allow you to maintain a bottom reading. I heard a lot of bass guys are doing this but its unknown turf for me. Ive played with the transducer on mine and it seem to help some but not a fix. Mines does better in smooth water about 40 mph. Then in ruff water 18-22 mph.

Trimming the motor up seems to help me with the left hand side image. I find myself running the right hand side with split screen on the graph.

 I went to the hummingbird seminar here at bass pro shops today and the rep. said they have came out with a splitter cable and you can run another transducer model number xnt-9-20-t along with the regular side image transducer. He said the unit was already smart enough to read off both tranducers. Although he did say this cable was new so finding it at this time might be hard. I havent even looked for it yet. He said it was alot cheaper than running the switch deal i was referring to earlier. This good news for me as i like to fish santee and shollow water will bite you in the middle of the lake. Sorry for the ramble on your post fishhook. Just passing along what i find out to others. :2wink:

OMG another side imaging user  I guess we'll have to change the name of the site to Side Imaging Masters that also catfish

Scott from what the sales rep at the seminar i went to said.....he was told from hummingbird directly not to sale these units as high speed bottom readers. In fact what he said was to mount the side image transducer above the bottom of the boat because its only suppose to be used at slow speeds. He said the direction for mounting the transducer on these units was not right. Although he said he had a lund boat (deep v) same as you and i and he said he had his working at top end speed also. So there is hope that it would work but he said he had to drop his way below the bottom of the boat to get it to work but he said it would break the transducer sooner or later. By running the second transducer (it being alot smaller) it would not be so much of a snow plow on the back of the boat as the side image transducer. My old lowrance x15 would hold bottom at 53 mph and not even blink...no matter what the water conditions where. As for the splitter cable i was referring to.....the unit comes with a splitter cable but its not the right one. At least not on mine. I have the 2008 cataloge here and it doesnt list this splitter cable he was referring too but he said the cable was alot cheaper than buying the switch. Scott i think your boat is all welded boat also which might be a big plus for you. Mine is riveted but i have the side image tranducer mounted where my old one was at and its away from any riveted seams. I would love to see a picture of yours if you do get it to working. I will be calling hummingbord this week and find out what i can if you fellows would like to call them here is the number (334)687-6613 or toll free (800) 633-1468. Sales rep i talked to at bass pro shops name was fuzzy. He is the hummingbird sales rep for this area.

Well here you go on the splitter cable part number ASSIBBY cost is 23.99. Bad news is they are backordered until may 10th but i figured they would be the first ones to get them so i ordered mine today along with the transducer part number XNT-9-20-T. I am current out 96.00 more bucks but it will be well worth it to me for the high speed bottom reading. She suggested a tape on the boat bottom type transducer mount for the other transducer but i didnt want no tape on jewel on my boat. :2wink: She said it wouldnt effect my temperature or dual beam read outs.(83 khz and 200khz). trick will be to get this new tranducer out of the sight of the side image one. :2wink: I think i will just mount it on the opposite side of the boat. That should do the trick.  Well i hope this works and i will keep you posted once the part comes in. I might of been able to save some on the transucer selection but the man that told me this fishes...i dont know about the lady at the plant.

Scott i noticed in the seminar on his slide show he had the side image transducer on the rt side (looking at the back of the boat) and from what i read that was the side for it. Less disturbulance from the motor on that side i think. Then he had the regular transducer on the left hand side. I think with one being on each side it wouldnt interfere so much with the side image but you got to keep in mine which fq. you running too. Like the 455khz side image shoots striaght out at 84 degrees from the transducer. Then the 800kz is shooting out at 55 degrees. Still yet as jim has told me i like running mine with reading off the rt hand side on the image part with a split screen on the graph. So mounting the high speed transducer on the (left hand side looking at the back) it wont bother my rt hand side imaging at all. Looking back now the tape on transducer might be somthing you should look at before ordering the trasducer. That way it would be clear of both sides on your imaging. i could just see mine getting knocked off though.