DSM and Transducer Help

[elly]

I have a 2008 R25, Raymarine C120, DSM30, Airmar B60-12 transducer.
I have had a intermittent problem with my depth sounder where one of 2 things happen:
1) the depth display on the C120 shows dashes (---). When this happens is usually is when I am headed into shallow water, 6 ft. or less.
2) I get an alarm and a message that says "DSM signal lost". When this happens it is the same deal, as I am headed into shallow water.
The fix for the DSM alarm is (sometimes) to turn the power off at the battery switch and then turn it back on. Everything then will be fine until it happens again, days or weeks.
I had a tech come to the boat and after looking things over he felt that the DSM was functioning normally (flashing green light). He did find that the transducer orientation was off by 30 to 40 degrees. There is an arrow on the transducer that is supposed to be perpendicular to the keel and this one is off. A call to the RT factory made it sound like the installation was not intentional and the orientation should be perpendicular. The tech believes the bad orientation is the cause of the problem and the fix is to pull the boat out of the water and reorient the transducer.
After a bunch of calls I have heard varying opinions on the effects of off orientation from no problem to problem. Also, it was suggested that are 2 issues. The DSM alarm/alert is an issue between the DSM30 and the C120 and the display of dashes is a transducer issue.
A side issue is that I am 2000 miles from home and living on the boat.
What should I do?
The options seem to be:
1) do nothing and continue to monitor
2) pull the boat and have the transducer repositioned. This could involve fiberglass work if the guy has to really pound to loosen the transducer and does not address possible DSM issue.
3) install a new transducer, Raymarine DSM and basically have a parallel system. If one side goes bad pull the plug out of the C120 and plug the other side in.
4) leave current system intact as it works most of the time and install some other 3rd party depth sounder. West Marine offers serial options under $300.

Does anyone have experience with #4?

Any insight would be appreciated.

 

[DBBRanger]

4) leave current system intact as it works most of the time and install some other 3rd party depth sounder. West Marine offers serial options under $300.

I have a Norcross Hawkeye depth sounder installed in addition to my DSM300 (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000JEOEE0/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1). It's less than $100 and works great. The display is mounted on top of the deck with an optional top mount. I use it mostly while at anchor to monitor depths since it only draws 0.1 amps as opposed to the E120 chart plotter that draws 5 amps. The transducer is mounted next to the Raymarine and therefore there is cross talk between them if both are on at the same time. I have had trouble epoxying the transducer to the hull - you need to insure there are no air bubbles in the epoxy so that gave me a hassle, but I think all is good now. Hawkeye's customer service is outstanding.

I infrequently get the dashes on my DSM300 but, for me, it is usually due to deep water or air bubbles in the water - never very serious.

Doug