Colour Radar Question

[earlybird]

I was hoping that an earlier post might provide the answer to the following question, but, so far, it hasn't, so here it is:- What are the benefits of a colour radar display, as opposed to mono, for a typical yacht person? If I see a black/ grey echo on my set. I watch it warily. I can't imagine it making any difference if it were red or blue or whatever.
I'm not against change, I recently purchased a new admiralty chart of my cruising ground. only to find they are now in colour. I find this a great improvement. Sincerely, what am I missing with radar?

 

[RMA]

Not a lot to be honest. I had to replace my old Furuno mono radar with a Koden colour one (it was all I could get at the time) and although the new set is much better that has little to do with the colour display. On the old set the echoes showed up as green, on the new one they show up as red. I suppose the red does stand out a little more, and looks prettier, but that’s about it really. I certainly don't think its worth paying a lot more for a colour set.

 

[Gunfleet]

You'd better reset your depth sounder too, because those new fangled Admiralty charts are in metres.

 

[mainmarine]

the main benefit is when using it with a plotter, to give radar overlay on the chart.

 

[vyv_cox]

As you have observed, the actual display in colour gives virtually no advantages. Where the benefits come is in all the additional stuff that comes with the more up-market sets, display boxes, various menus, etc. And as has been said, overlaying a plotter makes even more difference.

 

[Oldhand]

If you are comapring Raymarine equipment at least then the colour display has about 4 times the pixel resolution of the B/W displays thus it can show weak echoes as a smaller images. The higher resolution display is also likely to give a better indication of whether a return is a single target or 2 or more coincident targets that can result due to the relatively wide beamwidth of small radars. The different colour shades for the "hardness" of the return are more obvious than the greyscale shades.

 

[boatmike]

The only one I know is Raymarine which I am told is a better display than some others but I can't verify this so I will stick to what I know. Bear in mind I have moved from raster screen sets directly to LCD colour with little experience of LCD monochrome but from what I have seen the main advantage is clarity in bright sun. The strongest echos stand out as bright yellow with lesser targets in blue. I find one advantage of this is that say a big ship echo stands out from a lot of small ones better so "dangerous" objects stand out better. The thing I like most though is the "wake" control where the target stands out in yellow but its previous positions relative to your own is shown in blue with the ability to change the length of the wake. This, combined with 2 cursor placed EBL lines means a far better instant picture of multiple collision dangers than I have ever had on raster. Now I am sure you can do many of these things on monochrome as well but there is no doubt in my mind that sunlight viewable colour gives advantages if you can afford it. Everyone will make their own judgement of it's value but I wouldn't settle for less now I have it.

 

[SnaxMuppet]

Colour doesn't give much benefit at all for normal radar use. The chart overlay is pretty much useless for normal radar use too because the chart detail obscures the returns but it can be handy to identify land features or buoys but you wouldn't have it on overlay for long.

However, where I have found colour radar useful is if it is set to be sensitive to rain. The colours can give valuable information on the intensity of the precipitation.

If I had the choice I would have colour but I found my mono well worth having. Don't knock the mono systems... they still have plenty of life in them yet.

 

[Robin]

[ QUOTE ]
The strongest echos stand out as bright yellow with lesser targets in blue. I find one advantage of this is that say a big ship echo stands out from a lot of small ones better so "dangerous" objects stand out better

[/ QUOTE ]

That is a potentially dangerous assumption IMO as the radar has no idea of the size of the target, only the size of it's radar return which is not always the same. A ship seen head on by the radar can appear as a small target compared to one seen by it beam on so judging it's size by the colour shown on the screen could prove unwise.

We have over many years gone from a non-daylight viewable (Vigil) set, a daylight viewable (Furuno) set and now an inherited daylight viewable LCD set (Raytheon) in monochrome with our current boat. All of these do the job well with practice, the clearest was the Furuno which was a larger screen and had a better 'track' or 'plot/trail' function. Our set sits next to the chart plotter so comparisons can be easily made but no radar overlay, although the next waypoint is displayed in a 'lollipop' on the radar. The newer sets have pretty add-ons and gizmos like MARPA but the basics are the same and I for one wouldn't trust MARPA without having a very fast/gyro compass and even then I would have doubts. I would also be very concerned at having all eggs (plotter, GPS and radar) in one basket and still have doubts about sticking a radar display solely at the helm as many do. The most important feature of a radar display is not the current picture on it's own but the moving one of how things are changing, that to me needs a dedicated watcher not an occasional glance from the helm or someone else on deck best looking out visually. Our display is at the nav table, next to the plotter and the chart and with a second autopilot control as well so the boat's course may be changed from there if needs be.

Personal opinion only but that is my preference. Probably if I had unlimited money (and power) I would also buy the latest, but still have the main display below. However, in practice despite sailing many miles each year I find the radar is not needed in real anger for collision avoidance that often and when it is the basic monochrome is fine.