Radar range 10kw

[Marlene]

Anybody know what the range is for an analogue Raymarine 10kw open array radar, I have searched for a book of instructions on the internet but I can't find one. It came as an added extra with a plotter I bought, I thought it said 4kw, it was actually 4 foot.

 

[jfm]

I have 12kw digital with 4 foot. The range is longer than you'll ever use because it is far further then the horizon in most real life applications. The main benefit of ultra long range is to see rain. I can see rain and the mountain tops of a tall coastline like Corsica from 50 miles away, but I don't know what is furthest range it can achieve

 

[MYAG]

72 miles iirc

 

[Hurricane]

Agree with the above posts.
When we travel between mainland Spain and the Baldricks, the radar will see the mountains long before you can see them with the naked eye.
45 miles - sometimes more - mainland Spain is about 100 miles from the Baldricks so it is sometimes possible for the radar to see both the islands and the mainland - depends on the height of the mainland mountains - so that would make it 50 mile range - easily.

Not really useful information though.
In the Med, radar is much more useful as a collision avoidance tool or as JFM says it is very useful to track rain - we have been known to slow down, speed up or alter course to miss the rain.

 

[Hurricane]

I know this is drifting the thread a bit but I've been meaning to post these pics from our last passage.
I hope you find them useful.
I find them interesting anyway.
A good comparison of AIS vs Radar for collision avoidance.

I need to explain these pics.
These images are from our OpenCPN display (PC plotter) which has an AIS feed and the Radar also provides information from MARPA (for those who don't know, MARPA is a radar tracking facility that you will find on most kit - most Raymarine kit has it anyway).
Our track is recorded in red and we are the little red ship icon.
The green triangle shows the AIS transmitted from an approaching ship.
The green circle with a black dot is generated from our radar - note that it isn't as accurate as the AIS triangle - this is because radar is notoriously poor at angular measurement - our system isn't particularly good when we are heading in that particular direction - it is much more accurate when we are heading back the other way - I have tried calibrating it but this is about as good as it gets for us.
The lines that extend from our red ship, the green triangle and the green circle indicate the speed that the vessels are going.

The second image shows the display after I had enabled the CPA (closest point of approach) and shows clearly that we will pass in front of the vessel.

The third image was taken after we had passed - Phew!!

Before anyone asks, I need to explain why our track is not completely straight.
Whales and dolphins - when we spot them, we often go and play.
In this particular incident, we didn't deviate much from our course.
This was our track about 20 minutes earlier.