Depth meter receiver needs to be replaced, Help!

[triton274]

Hello Folks,
So it looks like the screen is dead on my depth meter. The PO told me the display was slowly getting harder and harder to read. Now it lights up, but i can make out any numbers (this was on the hard, I expect it will do the same thing in the water) The receiver unit is a Interphase dg-1. I called up interphase to see if they still make a unit that would use the same transducer, they said they do not. Please look at the pictures below and let me know if you have any ideas on what receiver i could use as a replacement. Also, If I do have to replace both, Can any one recommend a system that is reasonably priced and would use the same size hole for the transducer? Any other info I should know?

(please excuse the awful pictures, all i had was my phone when i was at the boat yesterday)

[Rachel]

Sounds like you are swinging into spring mode :)

I don't have any information for you on which display might fit your transducer (although I imagine others here might), but I did get a little "uh-oh" going in my head when I saw the photo of your current transducer on the inside of the boat. That really long threaded neck makes me nervous. It looks like too much potential leverage if something knocks against it in the locker (i.e. I wonder if it could break or be dislodged).

I realize that I'm just looking at one small photo, so there may be more to it that I can't see; but given what I can see, I think I would want to take a good look at the whole transducer installation and make sure it was even something I would want to keep.

I may be a little "gun shy," as I once had a transducer come off while at sea and about 200 miles from shore (it literally came off in my crew-mate's hand and left us staring at blue water). This was the one through-hull item that the boat owner had had a yard take care of (instead of one of us), and when we later analyzed it (after our heart rates went down to only twice normal and we could no longer see the sea from inside the boat...) we could see that it was a sub-standard installation. In this case, only about 1-1/2 threads were engaged and then the bonding wire had just been shoved under the lip and not actually connected. Thank you very much!

Anyway, I was just thinking that maybe you don't want to go to too much effort to re-use your current transducer until you can be sure that it's all ship-shape.

Rachel

PS: One thing to know: Since you're digging into your foredeck now anyway, and presuming that you intend to learn how to take care of your boat yourself (since you're here I figure it's a sign), then just know that filling in a machined hole in the hull (like say if you go with a different size transducer, a different location, or a shoot-through-the-hull type), is not very hard, nor is it that much work, once you have the proper personal safety gear and tools for grinding and fiberglassing (which.... you might as well just get unless you are going to have a yard do all of your work).