Intermittent faults!

[Artie]

Three weeks ago I had to travel from Jersey at night in poor vis and my radar refused to function. The disply was very poor and although I got some signal at half mile range it was not accurate so I felt my way home. The following day I rang the engineer (I know sweet nothing about radar hardware) who said he would call me when it was dry in case he had to open the scanner unit. Later in the week I went over to Dielette and tried the radar on the way only to find that it was working properly. On my return I again phoned the engineer to aquaint him with the situation. He said that intermittent faults like this were not normal but he wondered whether he would be able to find it. The rain still fell so he would wait for a dry spell. Again I went out to sea - this time over to Cherbourg and on the way back - the radar would not work again. Today the engineer came down to the boat and switched on, we went out to sea, absolutely perfect response from half mile to 48 mile range. Obviously nothing the bloke could do but I must admit it bothers me as I have lost faith in the kit as I do not know when it will let me down again.
The boat and unit are two and a half years old and have done about 350 hours so it's not clapped out. - Any ideas folks?

Thanks - Roger

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[ChrisP]

You don't say what make it is. If its a Furuno they have a video cable between the scanner and the set. Its a co-ax type and it's very sensertive to duff connections at either end. May be worth checking here first.

ChrisP ;o)

<hr width=100% size=1>What do you mean the sea gull in front's walking !!!

 

[Artie]

Sorry - Raytheon 4kw Pathfinder!

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[sjohn_gibson]

I would check for a poor connection - loose wire or corrosion.

You could start by getting someone to manually flex the connections while someone else monitors the effect on the display.

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[DavidJ]

Have you contacted Raymarine.
I had an intermittent GPS fault after a year and they said that a software upgrade would cure it. I sent off the GPS sensor and in fact a new one came back. So suggest (after trying all the useful suggestions on this forum first) send off the unit for a service/upgrade

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