Sonar on or off when lifting trolling motor out of water?

[stan7]

Do I need to turn off my H-bird unit every time I lift my trolling motor between spots??

I've always assumed that having it "on" while out of the water is hard on the transducer. (Well, not as hard on it as ramming it into rocks then blaming it on your partner when it breaks off, but I would never do that.)

Also, I just installed a side-scan H-bird and mounted the transducer at the "step" on the back of my Skeeter, next to the jack plate (not at the very bottom of the hull). I imagine that at speed, this transducer will be out of the water as well. Do I need to worry about it? It looks like its smarter than I am, so maybe it knows when its out of the water?

Also, I noticed that the previous owner had epoxied in a thru-hull transducer. If its compatible with the H-bird, will this one work at speed with the Y-cable? I seem to recall reading something about that on the interweb...

[kb]

Nope you can leave it on all day........

kb