Garmin 2010C

So we are very much enjoying our new to us 2003 30' Pilot II. It came with a Garmin 2010C 10" color GPS/Plotter. This unit also has sonar capabilities with a GSD 20 module. The boat has three ducers. One Airmar for a small Raymarine depth, speed unit. One small transom mount ducer glued to the inside of the hull for a small Eagle backup. Finally an additional thru hull Airmar that I assume goes to the Garmin by way of the GSD 20 module. I have not found this module yet but assume it is somewhere since I know I have three ducers and three machines. When the 2010C is powered up and I go to the Sonar page it says the sonar is turned off. Try as I might I can not find a key to turn it on. I am hoping another member may have the same 2010C machine with sonar that may fill me in. Thanks for any help.

regards Holty

I have that unit with the GSD 20 (along with a few friends), the GSD20 (black box) should be close to the display, we mounted ours under the dash, wired to main 12vdc term strip. The connections are within the one cable/connector, so trace that large black wire coming out of the unit.
I will forewarn you, this unit /transducer is not the most reliable, I have put in 3 transducers and fellow owners have at least replaced once, not sure if its a case of the GSD20 over driving it thus burning it out, but Garmin had a temp sensor adapter that replaced the speed sensor, so they knew it failed a lot, spoke to engineer and basically it was phases out and that was that.
Good luck

I'm currently facing the same situation with my Garmin 3210. At first I thought it was an issue with the GSD 20, but as marlinmike says, it may be that the transducer is burning out. I've never heard of that happening, but would make sense in my situation. There is power getting to and coming out of the GSD 20, but the screen says that no sonar hooked up. Anyone know a easy way to check a transducer's health?
BTW, my transducer is mounted in the hull and has always worked great.

I had a cheap transom mount unit that I plugged in and hung over the side.

Max Simmons said:

I'm currently facing the same situation with my Garmin 3210. At first I thought it was an issue with the GSD 20, but as marlinmike says, it may be that the transducer is burning out. I've never heard of that happening, but would make sense in my situation. There is power getting to and coming out of the GSD 20, but the screen says that no sonar hooked up. Anyone know a easy way to check a transducer's health?
BTW, my transducer is mounted in the hull and has always worked great.

Click to expand...

Can you hear it click?
I seem to recall that.
Maybe put a pole to it and your ear when t is running.

So after further review I think one of my Airmars is for the Raymarine depth and the other is Raymarine speed. The rig came from Maryland and I did not get a chance to check ducer through hulls before she was dropped in the water here in Huntington NY. I searched again and am convinced I do not have the GSD 20 module. So now I can buy a used GSD20 on EBAY for $200-and another $100- for cheap ducer and cables or spend $500- for a new 7" 2016 Garmin GPS/FF with cheap ducer. It guess it is the smart move to go with the latter and spend the extra $ for a nice through hull ducer. I will then have a good FF with a good GPS back up. The Norwalk boat show is this week. Maybe I will cruise across the pond to see if I can get a deal?? What does B-O-A-T mean again? On a side note I needed a MSU0004R Bluechart for the 2010C to map the L.I. Sound. Garmin has discontinued them so I looked all over the web. Ebay had one in England for $100- that I could get by the end of October which was NG for me. I drove out to a marine junk yard yesterday afternoon and inquired if they had this chip. After going through a draw full of various chips they had one Garmin. The number matched and the owner wanted $65--. SOLD. Popped it in this morning and it worked great. Score one for Holty!

regards Holty

Your Garmin 2010 is very out of date and no longer supported by Garmin. When it eventually has a problem, you will find it difficult or more likely impossible to get repaired. Sure it works now, but for how long?


My suggestion is to go with new equipment. New electronics have a lot more features and are faster. Updates are available and they use standard storage media, not Garmin proprietary cards.

If you only need or want a digital depth readout, airmar has a nmea shoot through the hull transducer that outputs NMEA 0183 depth sentences. I can't remember the model number.
I think it's p-79 SMART. They also have a model that connects to nmea 2000

WesK said:

Your Garmin 2010 is very out of date and no longer supported by Garmin. When it eventually has a problem, you will find it difficult or more likely impossible to get repaired. Sure it works now, but for how long?


My suggestion is to go with new equipment. New electronics have a lot more features and are faster. Updates are available and they use standard storage media, not Garmin proprietary cards.

Click to expand...

Good advise. Electronics is stuff that gets outdated... and pretty fast. I found it cheaper to get a newer touch screen with sonar built in than to get a GSD20, 22 or 24.

WesK said:

Your Garmin 2010 is very out of date and no longer supported by Garmin. When it eventually has a problem, you will find it difficult or more likely impossible to get repaired. Sure it works now, but for how long?


My suggestion is to go with new equipment. New electronics have a lot more features and are faster. Updates are available and they use standard storage media, not Garmin proprietary cards.

Click to expand...

This is my thought also as we had a 2010C in our now departed Fu Hwa. It still worked but was completely unsupported including lack of map support. Since maps didn't change much on the Great Lakes, we used it with its 15 year old maps but I would have eventually replaced it with a GPSMAP 7610 which if I recall were a little over $2500 and provided many enhancements including WiFi.

I agree with all the above, DO NOT buy the gsd 20, wasn't that good new, it certainly won't be better now.

I have the Garmin 2010C system with a "dead" LCD screen. Is there a market for the other components (Antenna, GSD20 and external transducer) to sell or does anybody have the unit they want to sell ?
Or know where I can buy one ?
I have been searching but have not found one reasonably priced yet.
Maybe I will place an ad in the classifieds here.

TJM said:

I have the Garmin 2010C system with a "dead" LCD screen. Is there a market for the other components (Antenna, GSD20 and external transducer) to sell or does anybody have the unit they want to sell ?
Or know where I can buy one ?
I have been searching but have not found one reasonably priced yet.
Maybe I will place an ad in the classifieds here.

Click to expand...

It is amazing what you can find on eBay. Might take daily searches for awhile.