FAQ

Check that the dongle is plugged in and glowing: a light indicates that the computer can “see” the dongle. If a light isn’t visible, try a different USB port or computer.

Echoview dongles are enabled in specific versions. If you’ve recently purchased, extended or upgraded your license, then you may need to update your copy of Echoview. To do this, go to Help > Check for Updates when running Echoview, and install any updates that are available. This is often necessary even if you’ve only recently downloaded Echoview from our website, as the version on the website does not necessarily know about the latest dongle changes.

If you are using Echoview via Remote Desktop, please see the separate FAQ entry on this question.

If your dongle isn’t working after trying the above instructions, please contact Echoview Support and tell us the name of your license (which is on the tag attached to the dongle, and will be something like EV1234 or ABCD-1) and the exact version that you have installed, which you can find in Help > About Echoview, and will be in the format n.n.nn.nnnnn dongle version nnnnn (we need to know all digits).

3D objects are the most common cause of large EV files (bigger than a couple of megabytes). To reduce file size, open the EV file and then go to View > Scene Manager, and examine the scenes and objects saved in the file. You may wish to delete some or all if they aren't needed and file size is a concern.

We'll often ask you this if you contact us with a support question. The name of the dongle should be etched onto a metal tag that's attached to the USB dongle, and it will be in the format of either EV1234 or ABCD-1. Note that some dongles may have numbers and letters printed in gold type on the side of the actual dongle itself, but we don't use these numbers.

You can also plug the dongle in, run Echoview, and go to Help > About Echoview then click the License Information button. If your dongle is licensed for the version of Echoview that you are running the name will be listed next to "Dongle identifier".

If Echoview doesn't tell you and you are missing the metal tag attached to the dongle, please let us know, as we have other means of identifying the dongle if needed.

The dongles include security features to disable the license when in use via Remote Desktop. This is because Remote Desktop allows multiple users to use a machine simultaneously, and if the licensing worked then it would be a means of creating multiple licenses from a single license. Echoview dongles provide licensed access to our software for a single user only.

First check your journal's guidelines for referencing, but generally a variant of the following is used (with version 6.1 as an example):

Echoview Software Pty Ltd (2015). Echoview software, version 6.1.44. Echoview Software Pty Ltd, Hobart, Australia.

Have a look at our Echogram Interpretation examples in our help file, in case that provides you with any clues. If you're still unsure, send a screenshot through to Echoview Support along with some contextual information and we'll try our best to help you!

To ensure you are processing data as quickly as possible, we recommend:

• Using the 64-bit edition of Echoview (available from Echoview 7)
• Running Windows 7 or higher
• Using a 64-bit operating system
• Having plenty of RAM (16 GB or more)
• Having a dedicated video card (not integrated, as this can reduce the available system RAM)
• Using a fast, modern quad-core CPU
• When processing, store your data on a fast internal drive, ideally a solid-state drive

See also the Computer Requirements help file page.

To export target-per-track information for fish track regions, you need to change some settings in your EV file.

Firstly, set up a grid on the single target variable so that the extent of the single target data is in one cell; e.g. 100000 pings by 9999 m deep.

Next, open the EV File Properties dialog (shortcut key F6) and go to the Export page. In the Analysis by Cells section, choose the Database format (multiple files) option. While you are here, review the analysis variables that are selected for export in the Single Targets section, as you may want to turn some variables on or off.

Now you can perform an export. Make sure the single target window is active, then select the menu items shown in the image below to export an Analysis by Cells for Fish Track regions.

Five CSV files will be created during this export. Open the file that ends with (targets).csv, and examine the contents. This file contains one row of information for every target in every fish track region.

This process isn’t easy to find, and we’re keen to make this simpler in a future version of Echoview. If you’d like to add a vote for making this easier, please let us know by sending a quick email to support@echoview.com. 

This demonstration on youtube provides a thorough introduction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jxn1R_IBgGQ.

The following help file pages are also recommended reading:

• About calibrated data
• How to enter calibration settings
• Echoview calibration supplement files

The following online resources may be useful:

A Manual on Acoustic Surveys: Sampling Methods for Acoustic Surveys, from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Fisheries Acoustics - A Practical Manual for Aquatic Biomass Estimation, from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Acoustics Unpacked - A General Guide for Deriving Abundance Estimates from Hydroacoustic Data by Cornell University

Standard Operating Procedures for Fisheries Acoustics Surveys in the Great Lakes, from the Great Lakes Fisheries Commission

NOAA Protocols for Fisheries Acoustics Surveys and Related Sampling, from NOAA.

Please contact us if you have a similar publication that you would like to have added to this list.

If you see spikes of noise in your echograms, the source will be either acoustical or electrical. A common culprit is the firing pulse from another sounder (often one of the vessel's navigational sounders) being picked up via your transducer (i.e. an acoustic noise source). Another common culprit is inverter noise being picked up via your cabling (i.e. an electrical noise source).

Noise in the 70-206 kHz range suggests it is either a relatively broad bandwidth acoustic noise source, or transducer cables are passing close to an electrical noise source. The length of the lines on the echogram is indicative of the noise source's duration - you can work this out by the number of samples that each line covers on the echogram, multiplied by the duration of a single sample. The spacing between the lines is indicative of its rate - you can work this out by the number of samples between the last sample in one line and the first sample in the next, multiplied by the duration of a single sample. Once you have calculated this, you can try to determine whether the duration and rate values look familiar to anything else you're aware of on the vessel.

Echoview can always open older EV files in newer versions of Echoview, but files saved in newer versions cannot be opened in older versions. For example, an EV file saved in Echoview 7.1 cannot be opened in Echoview 6. This is because new versions of our software include new features, information about these features is saved in the EV file, and older versions can't understand this information.

It is not possible for a newer version of Echoview to save an EV file in a format that an older version can understand.

When you save an old EV file in a newer version of Echoview, the software creates a copy of the original EV file as a backup file in the same folder. This backup file can be opened in the older version of Echoview. So although any edits made in the new version of the software won't be in the backup file, there remains a 'snapshot' of the file at the time it was saved. The help file has more information about how to find and use backup EV files.