On Tue, 1 Jan 2008 09:34:57 -0500, "Glenn Ashmore"
wrote:

Anyone know anything about Koden radars? Koden owns Sitex and is known for
making high end commercial radars but they have a new (to me) line of
recreational units at in a very good price range. Low end is a 7" color
display with a 2KW radome for a street price around a boat buck. The 10" 2
KW is just under 2 boat bucks. Both have C-mapNT chart plotter capability
with split screen. You can link up to 3 displays through a standard
Ethernet hub and the 7" display is just $600. Not wild for the squared off
blue case but for 40% less than anything else with the same features it
looks like a pretty good deal.

I can't comment specifically on Koden but after quite a lot of
experience with our Furuno system I can offer the following
observations:

- The extra money for ARPA (automatic target tracking) is a very
worthwhile and a valuable feature. It has allowed my wife to become
comfortable with standing solo watches at night.

- The 10 inch screens are much more readable than 7 inch when in chart
plotter mode.

- It has been extremely reliable. I self installed it over 3 years
and 11,000 nautical miles ago. It has performed flawlessly.

- FURUNO displays have excellent, arguably the best, daytime/direct
sun visibility.

- Trackball pointers are much quicker and easier to use than a "cursor
arrow" device.

Are you launched and rigged ?

Our Spade S200 has also performed flawlessly... :-)