Radar in 2020

[DJE]

What does the doppler part of doppler radar do?

 

[TernVI]

What does the doppler part of doppler radar do?

Measures rate of change of range.
Works a treat if they fire missiles at you, can't say I've personally tried it for dodging trawlers.

 

[Daverw]

Would not want to be out on Humber without depth, upper not charted on plotter, only paper every two months and banks move around weekly., buoyed channel narrow with these big floatey things chasing down, now lower areas have bylaw that restrict access to river without radar in poor visibility, they will not lock you out so you cannot even sneak out.

 

[michael_w]

No delays with my elderly Furuno set, just takes more interpretation and practice. My boat's fish finder is much more useful than a standard echo sounder, It's very good for judging anchoring spots. Though I've yet to catch my supper with it.

 

[lustyd]

Bottom of Springs, High Pressure, I've ran aground in the middle of the North Channel. The Skipper was most amused, although he did agree that there *should* have been plenty of water there. But there wasn't.

Was the depth sounder not on/working?

 

[st599]

Was the depth sounder not on/working?

It was, went from about 1.5 to 0 in a boat length.

 

[powerskipper]

What does the doppler part of doppler radar do?

Doppler; it shows anything stationary or moving at less than a 3 knot difference to you , (so if a boat was running parallel to you at the same speed it would show it a blue) as a blued out target . anything moving away from you as a green target , and anything moving that it thinks is a danger as a red target.

 

[Robin]

Was the depth sounder not on/working?

If you mean the North Channel approach to Hurst, western Solent approaches it doesn't take much to be outside of the line from N Head buoy to the bouy marking the east corner of the shingles bank there could well have been a localised bump in the bottom at LWS even though most times there is plenty of water to go to/from Poole from just (say 100 yds) inside the channel, a known short cut we used regularly to make Poole on one tack westbound and we had 1.1 m draught. At LAT however get the stumps out and toss for who bats first.

 

[Lucky Duck]

Measures rate of change of range.
Works a treat if they fire missiles at you, can't say I've personally tried it for dodging trawlers.

There are number of boats in my marina with the radars installed near the top of the foretriange, I do wonder if they wanted it that far up for such an eventuality

 

[TernVI]

The shingles bank moves around.
A lot.
For some mionths, some years ago, there was an all-tide island in the Southern part of it, complete with estate agent's sign.
More shingle has been added to Hurst Spit at times.
I regard the North Channel as very much over-rated.

 

[RupertW]

I have neither AIS or Radar and no plans to fit either but that’s because our sailing is done in the Med/Canaries/Caribbean where there is no fog (or very very rarely at the times we sail)

If I was back in the UK and had a 40 foot boat the toys would not be icemakers and solar water heating they would I’m sure be radar and AIS.

 

[chubby]

Definitely agree. Ariam had the classic C-Series radar when we bought her, which was ok, got us out of a tight spot between Chaussey and St Malo, and was helpful a few other times. But all it did was draw fuzzy yellow pictures, needing manual interpretation.

The plotter eventually died, and we replaced the whole system with the current Quantum radar and Axiom plotter. It's a vast improvement. Last summer we left Cherbourg into unexpected fog, and then shortly afterwards the AIS receiver went mad. I later found it was emitting long streams of random characters instead of discrete AIVDM messages. Managing the shipping lanes with the old radar would have been hard work, and being honest as an unpracticed operator there'd have been a fair bit of trusting to luck and/or the ships' own radar watch and response as I doubt I'd have kept up with all the ships or plotted them all accurately. With the modern radar, whose target-tracking software actually works, we could designate targets and then let the computer keep track of them all, generating course, speed, CPA, predicted intercept, etc just as you would get from AIS. Not quite as accurate, being synthesised from radar returns rather than transmitted directly, but perfectly good enough to let us handle the lanes with confidence despite never making visual contact with anything from the Cherbourg breakwater to the Needles fairway buoy.

I've since replaced the faulty AIS receiver with a transmitter, but I'm also now both more confident in the radar and more convinced of its importance.

Pete

What size axiom plotter have you got? is the 7 inch too small for overlay or divided screen? I have the ES75 because i was cautious about going touch screen with no physical controls but in practice i never use them and a 9 has almost the same footprint but clearly bigger screen. Has anyone used the axiom + / an upgrade from the axiom?

 

[Robin]

What size axiom plotter have you got? is the 7 inch too small for overlay or divided screen? I have the ES75 because i was cautious about going touch screen with no physical controls but in practice i never use them and a 9 has almost the same footprint but clearly bigger screen. Has anyone used the axiom + / an upgrade from the axiom?

I share your concern re touch screens especially when the one we inherited went on permanent vacation. We replaced it with an Axiom 9 but decided against the much more expensive 'pro' version which offered little other than set mounted buttons for the extra. Instead we went for the add on remote control which is mounted more conveniently side of helm seat and gives most of the functions the 'pro' does but at a fraction of the extra cost. We also have a 10 inch android notebook linked to it via Raymarine's free to download app, this streams whatever is on the Axiom including radar overlay or alone and allows some controls too. In our case the notebook is on a bracket at lower helm with main Axiom set on flybridge, (we are now mobo users). Whilst size matters, the 9 inch is plenty big enough and good bang for the buck.

 

[Jamie Dundee]

In that case radar in particular as battleships do often switch off AIS and the chance that even an inexperienced operator will not notice a battleship on his display is slight, except of course if it is one of those newfangled stealth battleships. ?

Last winter I watched the Prince of Wales carrier passing around 6 miles off Port St Mary, giant ugly hulk of a thing. I was amazed how little radar return it gave, far less than the usual ferries and container ships.

 

[FlyingGoose]

This year going up past Scarba in Scotland the mist came down hard , a real pea souper,
Well the alternator had packed in , the solar was having a laugh , and my batteries fading fast as the MIL and wife and daughter were having a grand old time on my electric toilets ,as I watched my battery monitor with fading hope.
So I turned of my AIS, actually never turned it on for most of the 4 weeks
So throttle back , no radar although I have just repaired my old Furuno 826 but never got around to fit it in
So what to do , well we had plenty of eyes out and got my old brass quite large hunting horn out , (came with the boat)
And started a blowing , what a lovely sound ,
Well we met some boats in the gloom but no collisions ,
So that is the first time have been in near no vis and would have loved my radar and Ais working , would certainly have helped the anxiety and my toilets