bobnewbury
New member
Well, my new toy's finally arrived - a Raymarine C120 display & 2KW radome. Now I find I have to do a bit of thinkingfor a change.
When we bought the boat 10 years ago it had radar fitted (thundering great thing with a hooded CRT display), but as it never worked we took it off and used the radome cover as a plant pot. It was originally mounted on the mizzen.
If I mount the new one on the mizzen (where most ketches seem to put it) will the (aluminium)main mast cause a shadow dead ahead? Will there be some diffraction around the mast to reduce the effect? I'm wondering whether it might be worth mounting it on the main mast to give a clear view ahead as I doubt that the forestay will have much effect. Any ideas out there?
Second point - the display installation manual says to keep it a minimum of 1 metre from my VHF set and a minimum of 1 metre from my magnetic compass and to keep it away from any cabling. To do this I'll need a cockpit about the size of an olympic swimming pool (alright - I'm prone to hyperbole). I can see the necessity of keeping it away from a strong EMF source like an antenna, but isn't the VHF set itself shielded. And does the display affect the compass, vice versa, or both.
Over to you, initiates into the dark arts of electronics....
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When we bought the boat 10 years ago it had radar fitted (thundering great thing with a hooded CRT display), but as it never worked we took it off and used the radome cover as a plant pot. It was originally mounted on the mizzen.
If I mount the new one on the mizzen (where most ketches seem to put it) will the (aluminium)main mast cause a shadow dead ahead? Will there be some diffraction around the mast to reduce the effect? I'm wondering whether it might be worth mounting it on the main mast to give a clear view ahead as I doubt that the forestay will have much effect. Any ideas out there?
Second point - the display installation manual says to keep it a minimum of 1 metre from my VHF set and a minimum of 1 metre from my magnetic compass and to keep it away from any cabling. To do this I'll need a cockpit about the size of an olympic swimming pool (alright - I'm prone to hyperbole). I can see the necessity of keeping it away from a strong EMF source like an antenna, but isn't the VHF set itself shielded. And does the display affect the compass, vice versa, or both.
Over to you, initiates into the dark arts of electronics....
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