How high does a radome need to be?

I know you see a lot of radar sets mounted on "coachroofs". This doesn't necessarily make it a good idea. If you do this, you irradiate anyone working on the foredeck when it's in use. I know about the inverse square law and that, in professional installations you'll find a "no-go" area painted around the antenna beyond which it is nominally safe to work, but I'd not mount one below 10' on a mast, even a low power yacht radar. Co-ax cable suffers from losses as the distance of the antenna from the set increases, ideally this should be as short as possible so it's all a bit of a compromise.
 
Topcat47 said:
I know you see a lot of radar sets mounted on "coachroofs". This doesn't necessarily make it a good idea. If you do this, you irradiate anyone working on the foredeck when it's in use. I know about the inverse square law and that, in professional installations you'll find a "no-go" area painted around the antenna beyond which it is nominally safe to work, but I'd not mount one below 10' on a mast, even a low power yacht radar. Co-ax cable suffers from losses as the distance of the antenna from the set increases, ideally this should be as short as possible so it's all a bit of a compromise.
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Personally I view the 'safe distance' as OK for disposable lower ranks, I'd rather keep out of a radar beam unless I'm at least several boatlengths from it.
In the industry the same limit is in milliwatts, not kilowatts.
 
I asked Raymarine about this, the response was that on their yacht units the safe distance was 1 inch from the radome! The actual output is tiny, seems right considering how little power they use. Big ship's units are different, even so the safe distance is very close the the radome.
 
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