In article ,
larry wrote:

Bruce in alaska wrote in news:fast-151579.10373820012008
@netnews.worldnet.att.net:

They are mostly used on ships
LARGER than 1200 Tons,

I figured most of these boys and girls were on plastic bubbleboats and
didn't have 8MW air search radars aboard....(c;

Your Squid background is showing Larry, Most Commercial Shipping Vessels
larger than 1200 Gross Tons, will have both XBand and SBand Radar fitted,
and the SBand Radar, these days is used to detect Weather Fronts,
Squalls, Etc. Back in the day, they would be used for Long Distance
Position Fixing, as they had better Range than the fitted XBand Radars.
GPS and Loran have taken over the Position Fixing Job, in modern
Navigating, so SBand, which sees Atmospheric Moisture, much better than
XBand, is used for that. Xband has much better Resolution than SBand,
so it is used, to keep from running into other moving objects, inside
the local path of the vessel. No Ship should be using Radar to keep from
running into non-moving Objects, as GPS, Charts, and the Mark One
Eyeball, should take care of that, and if not then the Master is sorely
lacking in navigation skills.

--
Bruce in alaska
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