New radar kit - thoughts and advice please

sarabande

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I have been looking at used radar kit for a few months, and do not feel confident to buy, even the "one careful owner" pieces.

Sailing boat, 32ft, mainly low crewed or single handed, GB and NW EU planned cruising. Scanner to be on stern gantry at about 10 - 12ft above sea level (not happy about putting scanner up the mast)+.

I am pretty sure I don't want a 6ft scanner reaching out to 40 miles identifying pot floats, but more of a sense of " there's land ahead at 4 miles and it looks like Plymouth breakwater", or "solid contact 3 miles bearing 000 relative, closing speed 11kts".

Reasonably good radar experience over many years with a 30inch Raymarine monochrome, but a growing sense that the more prudence I can apply to where I am and what is nearby, the happier I shall be.

Reliability is key. I am not driven by integration with chart plotter, unless people can convince me. Standard or digital ? Wifi only ? (I have decent boaty phone and tablet) etc ?


What are the criteria which you regard as 'needed' or "wanted" for simple sailing please ?

TIA
 

Skylark

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I’d suggest digital generation with chart overlay. Also ensure heading sensor to give stabilised NU and CU orientation, as required. Most sets will have MARPA and the adjustments that you are familiar with, albeit “auto” is probably better than I could set manually.

Range, bearing and guards are pretty standard features.
 

jwfrary

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The current stable of solid state radars with doppler, velocity track etc are going to suit your need.

Low power output so emissions into the cockpit are not a concern as well as modest power consumption.

Main drawbacks are the lack of power to extend much range 24 miles is wishful thinking. And detection of approaching weather is better on a traditional magnatron radar. Also generally not enough power to trigger a racon but these are increasingly being supplemented buy AIS anyway.

Your choice will come down to

What if any radar your current plotter supports.

After that, then it really comes down to the interface you prefer. Performance wise it's not night and day between the makes.
 

jwfrary

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The current stable of solid state radars with doppler, velocity track etc are going to suit your need.

Low power output so emissions into the cockpit are not a concern as well as modest power consumption.

Main drawbacks are the lack of power to extend much range 24 miles is wishful thinking. And detection of approaching weather is better on a traditional magnatron radar. Also generally not enough power to trigger a racon but these are increasingly being supplemented buy AIS anyway.

Your choice will come down to

What if any radar your current plotter supports.

After that, then it really comes down to the interface you prefer. Performance wise it's not night and day between the makes.

I should add from personal experience of what I have used recently.

Quantum 1, not all that impressive and on the older axiom I dont think as good as a digital 18 hd scanner from raymarine on an es screen.

Quantum 2 on an axiom pro seems better, (brother owns one)

Simrad 4g which isn't available isn't as good a I would like it to be and have had some reliability issues, though these have hopefully been cured with a firmware update...we shall see.

Furuno wifi radar. Absolute garbage.

Furuno drs 24 inch scanner, best picture out there, but precious little support in the uk.

Simrad halo + marked improvement on the 4g

Simrad halo 24 still waiting for it to turn up.

I expect availiblity might sway your decision making!


The
 

Neeves

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If you do not integrate your radar with existing electronics you will need a new display and MFDs are not cheap. It is sensible there fore, if possible, to buy your new radar so that it integrates with your existing electronics. It is unlikely, unless there has been much change, that a Simrad unit will accept a Raymarine radar and vice versa. Radar software tends to be proprietary and thus incompatible. If you current MFD is old it might not support new radar.

I think most MFDs will allow you to establish a split screen one for the chart, another for the radar - you do not need to overlay.

If on refection you think this has sense - you need to declare what you have as this will, possibly, determine in what you invest and members here can make more focussed comment.

AIS offers some of what you want but there is no requirement for small vessels to carry AIS and radar does offer a sensible supplement (to AIS). We don't have AIS because we don't have many big ships, weather is generally good (and you can see big ships reliably) its the small fishing boat that we focus on. We also find radar useful for anchoring (had to get anchoring into the thread) as it defines exactly how far away are the rocks and other yachts (which can be more difficult to determine in the dark after a long passage).

So mull over the responses and maybe focus up what you have.

Jonathan
 

PaulRainbow

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I have been looking at used radar kit for a few months, and do not feel confident to buy, even the "one careful owner" pieces.

Sailing boat, 32ft, mainly low crewed or single handed, GB and NW EU planned cruising. Scanner to be on stern gantry at about 10 - 12ft above sea level (not happy about putting scanner up the mast)+.

I am pretty sure I don't want a 6ft scanner reaching out to 40 miles identifying pot floats, but more of a sense of " there's land ahead at 4 miles and it looks like Plymouth breakwater", or "solid contact 3 miles bearing 000 relative, closing speed 11kts".

Reasonably good radar experience over many years with a 30inch Raymarine monochrome, but a growing sense that the more prudence I can apply to where I am and what is nearby, the happier I shall be.

Reliability is key. I am not driven by integration with chart plotter, unless people can convince me. Standard or digital ? Wifi only ? (I have decent boaty phone and tablet) etc ?


What are the criteria which you regard as 'needed' or "wanted" for simple sailing please ?

TIA

What is your existing plotter Tim ?

Do you plan to change it ?
 

PaulRainbow

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If you do not integrate your radar with existing electronics you will need a new display and MFDs are not cheap. It is sensible there fore, if possible, to buy your new radar so that it integrates with your existing electronics. It is unlikely, unless there has been much change, that a Simrad unit will accept a Raymarine radar and vice versa. Radar software tends to be proprietary and thus incompatible. If you current MFD is old it might not support new radar.

Two valid points, there is, as far as i'm aware, no cross platform interchangeability with radomes/MFDs.

You're also correct that older MFDs/plotter are not likely to work with new radomes, depends on the age difference, of course.
 

ashtead

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We have an es raymarine from 2015 with raymarine radar scanner -works fine so far unlike Fusion radio kit which needs replacing or the rubbish depth sounder airmar type. Personally I would be asking if any new radar set would Bluetooth pair with your iPad device or equivalent so you can view below ,under sprayhood. I assume you have AIS send and receive already but if not and intending to buy a new radar maybe look at the plotters Ais features and choose the radar based on that ie let the AIS plotter be primary focus and the radar unit follows same make . You might get down to port Solent chandlers marine superstore and have a trial or maybe even a trip to Brum boat show -I feel the plotters are very personal choice - personally I feel raymarine are sometimes complicated -buying a raymarine -the paper manual book might help .
 

sarabande

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I had forgotten the Birmingham Boat Show 17 - 22 Feb. :)


That sounds like an excellent plan to have a day out there pestering the techy salespersons.


Thanks to everyone for ideas. I am trying to keep the system specification as simple as possible (i.e. separate plotter and radar screens) as I have a perfectly good A70 Raymarine plotter. What I don't want is an all-singing, all-dancing system reliant on a central processor which then goes on strike, cutting out the MFDs entirely. Resilience, resilience, resilience.
 

Neeves

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Paul wil, rightly, correct me if I'm wrong but the soft ware for the radar needs the compatible screen. Your A70 plotter will not offer you anything tied to a B&G scanner. I also don't think you can tie a B&G radar scanner with WiFi to a tablet. Whatever radar you opt for needs to be linked to the MFD (call it a plotter) made by the same manufacturer. You cannot mix and match. Your cheapest option is finding a radar scanner compatible with your A70 - but that might not be possible. If it is impossible and you still want radar - you can then ask here for the best options.

We went through the same exercise and decided to leave the old Raymarine system (the radar had failed and Raymarine no longer carried spares) and build a new system round Simrad (now we would do it round B&G). We now have two independent systems, lots of redundancy, with the advantage of WiFi we can view and control the Simrad data from a tablet. Our AP runs off the Raymarine MFD and inputs - but when the AP fails we would hope to replace with a new Simrad system. We chose Simrad as we wanted their radar.

NMEA works for everything, you CAN mix and match, but not radar.

Jonathan
 

sarabande

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I have not mentioned B&G. They are probably the last one on my look at list. I have not said that I am going to link any new radar to my old plotter.

I am cognisant of the difficulties of integration and getting NMEA in its various iterations to work with different devices and manufacturers.

An MFD is different from a plotter.

I think I have different and possibly more rigorous objectives than you.
 

PaulRainbow

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We have an es raymarine from 2015 with raymarine radar scanner -works fine so far unlike Fusion radio kit which needs replacing or the rubbish depth sounder airmar type. Personally I would be asking if any new radar set would Bluetooth pair with your iPad device or equivalent so you can view below ,under sprayhood. I assume you have AIS send and receive already but if not and intending to buy a new radar maybe look at the plotters Ais features and choose the radar based on that ie let the AIS plotter be primary focus and the radar unit follows same make . You might get down to port Solent chandlers marine superstore and have a trial or maybe even a trip to Brum boat show -I feel the plotters are very personal choice - personally I feel raymarine are sometimes complicated -buying a raymarine -the paper manual book might help .

Wireless radar does not use Bluetooth, it uses wifi. It will not "pair" or directly connect to a tablet. If the MFD is wifi enabled (almost every new one is) it should be possible to mirror the MFD display on a tablet.
 

PaulRainbow

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I have not mentioned B&G. They are probably the last one on my look at list. I have not said that I am going to link any new radar to my old plotter.

I am cognisant of the difficulties of integration and getting NMEA in its various iterations to work with different devices and manufacturers.

An MFD is different from a plotter.

I think I have different and possibly more rigorous objectives than you.

I would forget about B&G and Simrad (anything Navico). Supplies are impossibly slow, or non-existant. Raymarine or Garmin for me.

NMEA does not entire the equation. Radar does not connect to the display by NMEA, it uses Ethernet. Might be called Garmin Marine Nertwork or Raynet or whatever, but it's Ethernet. The software protocols are proprietary so the both need to be the same make. If mixing new with old, care needs to be taken to make sure the new radomes are compatible.

An MFD is indeed different to a plotter, but i don't think any of the big names have made a plotter for at leat 15 years, everything today is an MFD, unless you're talking commercial, dedicated radar or oddball. But that's just semantics really, if you buy a new display it will almost certainly be an MFD.

By all means fit a second MFD if you want, just think where you will connect the radar, and how.
 

Sandy

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Wireless radar does not use Bluetooth, it uses wifi. It will not "pair" or directly connect to a tablet. If the MFD is wifi enabled (almost every new one is) it should be possible to mirror the MFD display on a tablet.
Tim

I got the new Garmin radar mounted on its pole today, when I finish the wiring, a small hole at either end of a two meter drop are frustrating me at the moment, pop over and have a look at the setup went for. Spotted that somebody in the yard has AIS on!
 

Daverw

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Just to add that the lowrence/ simrad/ b&g all use the same radar unit and are interchangeable, unfortunately as Paul says supply’s seem to be very spars, we have currently Lowrence but will change this next year to b&g and be able to reuse 4g radar
 
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