On Mon, 25 Jul 2011 21:56:41 -0700 (PDT), Bill Ewald
wrote:

To me the
problem is the combining of the GPS and radar on the same screen at
the wheel. To me at least, radar should be a separate operation.

A lot of modern chart plotter/radar combination units offer the option
of overlaying the radar display on top of the chart image. I find
this ocassionally useful, particularly for quickly determining whether
or not a blip is a nav mark or vessel. I do not normally operate in
that mode however since it tends to clutter the display.

If you are trying to learn how to manually correlate what you see on
radar with the chart data, I recommend rotating the chart in the
direction that you are moving since the radar display is normally
oriented as "course up". That can take some getting used to since
most people are used to looking at charts in "north up" orientation.