On Mon, 6 Jun 2005 17:43:03 -0400, "*JimH*" wrote:

The point is that you can't make a blanket statement that you can't
pick up birds on recreational radar because, with training, some
experience and the right setup, you can do it.

Why would any boater bother to set their radar up to track birds?

Well, in some cases, it does work rather well. Up here in New
England, there is a lot of clutter and with radomes and small open
array antennas, it is very marginal unless the bird is rising high
enough to catch. I first became interested in bird tracking with
radar when I worked for Texaco Oil in Louisiana. I became friendly
with a head boat charter operator out of Venus, LA (I fixed his radar
for him on the cuff) and he taught me a lot about how to discriminate
surface/rain/fog clutter and birds working a bait ball. I never
forgot the lessons.

We had a Raytheon RL9 LCD radar (dome 2 kw radar) and a Raychart 601XX
chartplotter/GPS with a C-Map of the west and east Lake Erie regions on our
32 footer. I installed a Raymarine ST40 depth sounder and interlocked it
with the LCD display. My only use for radar was for storm watching, night
running and for the unlikely event I got caught up in heavy fog. I used the
chartplotter almost exclusively during daytime operation.. Very nice tool
when cruising as it not only showed speed, current position and current
depth but also marked depths (from the c-map) of the Lake areas I was
traveling..

I'll tell you the truth - I use radar to keep from hitting idiots who
refuse to slow down in the fog or tug operators with long tows. Other
than that, it's running and I keep an eye on it, but I normally I use
my two eyes and the chart plotter. The fishing is usually places I
know will produce in most conditions.

BTW: No apology needed Tom. You have always been a straight shooter and a
stand up guy.

Well I thank you, but I felt bad about that.

Hey, water over the bridge.

Later,

Tom