On Tue, 03 Jan 2006 19:00:57 -0500, Larry wrote:

As to mounting it, there's a trade. You are a sailboat so nothing
happens very fast. 15 mile range is overkill at 8 knots as you won't be
there for 2 hours, yet. If you mount it high up, you get excellent
range. Sounds good, eh? Unfortunately, high up also has a tradeoff in
how CLOSE to the boat you can see that big, heavy, CG bouy in the
whiteout fog bank. High up, the radar's beam goes OVER the top of low-
down items, like bouys, and the closer they are, the worse they display.

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I disagree with this premise based on my own experience. I have a 2
KW Furuno mounted 24 feet above the water. It has absolutely no
problem seeing near by targets, right down to the limitation of the
electronics which is about 50 feet. We were out the other day and it
picked up a duck sitting on the water about 100 feet in front of us.

As far as a sailboat not needing anything past 15 miles because of
slow speed, that is a dangerous assumption. A commercial ship
traveling at a typical offshore speed of 20 kts is moving 1 nautical
mile every 3 minutes. If you are converging from opposite directions
at 8 knots, even faster. I like all the warning time I can get, and
being able to pick up distant shore features is desirable also.