Radar Questions

[CaseyP]

What I do is start on the 3 mi range. Turn the sea and rain off. increase gain until the picture is spotty, then increase sea. I use the sea setting to get rid of most of the spots, but I can never pick up that boat. This is usually when I am trolling, so I have time to play with the settings. Eventually I do pick it up, but not until about a mile or so out, by then I have reduced the scale to 1.5 miles and tuned it again.

I think it changes pulse timing(or width or something) between 1.5 and 3 miles. Regardless, 1 mile starts to me reliable for me. When I say reliable, I mean at all speeds and most sea conditions up to 4'.

The AUTO setting is fine for picking up large boats(35+') or on calm days. I find I usually have to go to manual to pick up small rain showers, the big ones show on AUTO.

I do know that I was disillusioned when I bought the radar. I figured it would show me smaller(25-30') boats I could not see with the naked eye on a clear day. That is not the case. I can pick up ocean going tug boats at 7-9 miles. and the beach off of chincoteague at 11 or so miles.

I disagree that it has nothing to do with power. If it were 10kW, you could see that boat. 4kW may not be enough, but it will certainly be better than 2.

All that said, I still would have purchased it. Used it too many times at night and in the fog.

[bluefin2na]

Just out of curiosity, How far away can you pick up rain showers/t-storms with the 2kw unit?

[troll]

All radars will have difficulty differentiating nearby boats from sea clutter in whitecaps. The waves simply look like valid targets to the radar beam. The trick to having better success is not to use TOO much sea clutter and then visually analyze successive sweeps to find real targets.

In moderate caps of 3-4' in a 12-15 kt wind, I typically set my previous radar on 1/2 - 1 mile. There will be plenty of clutter in one quadrant of the display. This will correspond to the windward side. I can always mark boats of 19'+ from 1/2 to 1 mile. I depend on visual to see the boats with 1/2 mile and distinguish from clutter. In this manner the radar acts as an early warning to spot boats while your vision tracks them in close.

I would also recommend setting the gain on your longest range and the sea clutter on your shortest.

[skimmer]

I got a furino 19-- something 10"crt screen 4k dome integrated with a garmin plotter/gps/ff. Works great has alot of features but to be honest I only look at the chart and mark points for structures I find or places I picked up fish.The radar I leave on the 1.5 or 3 mile range with auto tuning. It has a whole lot of features like the plotter but who can mess with that stuff while moving at 20+ kts and boats all over the place. My advice forget the lcd color screen radar. Way over priced, alot of useless features. What it boils down to is this, when you can't see it with your eyes you want to see a dot on the screen. Learn to use it in clear daylight so you can build your confidence in using it at night or in fog. One more thing, your eyes and your ears are much more important than any piece of equipment you get.