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#1
posted to rec.boats.cruising
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Radar - attitude changes
Hello Roger,
Welcome "back" ... It is a pleasure for me - again - to have the opportunity to read your interesting viewpoints and comments. Your inputs (comments and homepage and project descriptions etc.) are most often very inspiring and relevant to me, and you seem to be very well informed about "maritime stuff and technology" of all kinds ... I'm curious - therefore - about your opinion - if any - on the new so called 'broadband radar' ... See f.ex http://www.navico.com/en/Media/Press...oadband-Radar/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOWmWvojp98 http://www.cruisingworld.com/gear-an...000071492.html Is it something you have studied? Considered? Seen for real? When I read about it, I get the impression, that this is exactly what I need as a supplement to my AIS receiver and chartplotter and the PC on board. The material, I have seen, is - however - produced by the respective marketing departments ... So your opinion would be highly appreciated ... or some one elses opinion, who has specific experience with this technology ... -- Flemming Torp - X-342 - Denmark Sailing in the busy "Nordic waters" may give several days with dense fog .... "Roger Long" skrev i en meddelelse ... On Sep 27, 4:57 pm, "Capt. JG" wrote: Sure... explain away! I'm not a huge fan of radar... I thought SF Bay was quite foggy. Am I wrong? Back when I was saying I could do fine without radar in Maine I would also think, "Now if I was someplace like SF Bay..." I looked at the small stand alone radars of size and power draw appropriate to my boat and learned that Garmin has done a clever thing (muc has it pains me to say since there is much I hate about Garmin in general). Their radars do all the signal processing up in the radome and then turn it into a signal that runs along a standard Cat 5 computer network cable like the one that probably is plugged into the back of your computer. A clever person could certainly hack software to make it display on a lap top. Most of their chartplotters accept this signal. So, for less than $200 more than a stand alone unit, I could buy a radome and a 3205 chartplotter with charts for the entire U.S. preloaded. I essentially got a second larger and more sophisticated chartplotter for free and a color display instead of the BW of comparably priced stand alone radars. Instrument space is precious on my small boat so it was also nice not to have yet another box. The best thing about the set up is that the radar display can be overlaid on the chart with the GPS position. This is a huge improvement in situational awareness. You can figure out almost instantly whether a blip is a buoy or a vessel as opposed to going back and forth between a dedicated radar display and a GPS or chart transferring ranges and bearings. When you are sailing single or shorthanded, these workload savings reduce fatigue and improve lookout and attention to other navigational issues. It's very difficult to run a proper radar plot in close, complex, waters such as along the coast of Maine. Radars of this size are not very conducive to plotting directly on the screen although some people do it. There are enough asterisks scattered around Maine waters that I'm reluctant to clutter up my screen with marks as well. The chart overlay is a great plotting substitute. You can see by watching soundings and other landmarks if a target is just wandering around randomly and is probably a lobster boat or maintaining a straight course and make a good estimate of speed. If it is close to maintaining a constant bearing, it will be pretty obvious. Switching to full screen radar mode gives your all the standard tools which I some times use but I have to use them a lot less because I can rule out most targets as a CPA danger just from the chart display. There's much more of a learning curve than I expected. I spent the first week or two thinking "Why did I spend all this money?" I thought the overlay was pretty useless because it was so hard to find the little red targets in the clutter. The brain trains. Now, I little red spot pops up and my brain zeros right in on it from six feet away at the helm. Working with it a lot in clear weather, I developed enough trust to do my singlehanded radar running on autopilot trusting to the advance warning. The straighter course the autopilot can keep, (at least when I'm standing radar watch) makes the whole picture clearer. I have the dodger in my hand and it only adds a couple of boat lengths to the distance in which I can spring to the controls and do a full stop or 180 turn which is much faster in my boat. As I said, I wouldn't sail without it now. -- Roger |
#2
posted to rec.boats.cruising
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Radar - attitude changes
On Sep 30, 6:00*pm, "Flemming Torp" fletopkanelbolle2rp.danmark
wrote: I'm curious - therefore - about your opinion - if any - on the new so called 'broadband radar' ... Sorry Torp, I haven't given broadband a thought. When I went to buy radar last spring, some people said, "This is a terrible time to buy radar, broadband will be here next year." I had to say, "Yeah, but I've got to have it for this spring's trip." I've just tried not to think about it since then and be happy with what I have. Hopefully, someone else here can fill us in. -- Roger Long |
#3
posted to rec.boats.cruising
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Radar - attitude changes
Don't know much about it, but it sure looks interesting. Amazing detail if
you believe the marketing hype. "Roger Long" wrote in message ... On Sep 30, 6:00 pm, "Flemming Torp" fletopkanelbolle2rp.danmark wrote: I'm curious - therefore - about your opinion - if any - on the new so called 'broadband radar' ... Sorry Torp, I haven't given broadband a thought. When I went to buy radar last spring, some people said, "This is a terrible time to buy radar, broadband will be here next year." I had to say, "Yeah, but I've got to have it for this spring's trip." I've just tried not to think about it since then and be happy with what I have. Hopefully, someone else here can fill us in. -- Roger Long -- "j" ganz @@ www.sailnow.com |
#4
posted to rec.boats.cruising
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Radar - attitude changes
On Thu, 1 Oct 2009 00:00:30 +0200, "Flemming Torp"
fletopkanelbolle2rp.danmark wrote: I'm curious - therefore - about your opinion - if any - on the new so called 'broadband radar' ... The reports I've gotten have not been all that positive. Apparently it does what it says on short ranges under a mile but is pretty much useless on targets more than a mile away. If you already have a good long range radar it might make a good hi-res supplement for close quarters. |
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