I've had the ultrex for about two years and love it. I experienced two issues with it that might be related. First, it is a bit noisy in low wind conditions and seemed to be over compensating only in low wind, pivoting the head back and forth sometimes constantly. Second, and perhaps is going to be a part of the answer to the first issue, is my Crestliner has a recessed foot pedal tray. When I installed it in the tray, that caused a fairly slight kink in the cable directly in front of the pedal. One cold day it went to the end of pivot travel and shut off multiple times. I mentioned it to my buddy who also has an ultrex and he immediately said, "you have a kink somewhere in your cable that runs from your foot pedal to the top of the shaft. That causes binding in the cable and you'll have problems." I made a cedar shim to put under the front of the pedal to take the bind out of the cable and problem solved. I've only been our once since I did that but it seems like it corrected both problems, as well as enhancing battery life. I would never consider fishing without one for any length of time now that I've owned one. I would stick up 7-11's if I had to if I couldn't afford it. Just kidding on that,..... sort of.