Volume on hydrophone only works if there some contact to listen at.
About the frozen needle, is it only the hydrophone that is like this or does the other gaughes in controlroom pointnig straight up?
If so, there was this problem with some early mod, so you probably have som mod enabled casuing your problem. I had a problem with Ail's "old navmap" or what's it's called. Can't say why, there's absolutely no logic in it, but that's the way it was. I really like Ail's mods!
So please, be more specific to all your mods, and check if also the other gaughs are like I described.