Radar. which book for advice for newbie

Ooer. I've had radar for fifteen years and never bought myself a book. I had a B&W RL70 first and basically learned by playing with it every time we were on autopilot and I didn't need to helm. I'm afraid that I never got around to doing a plot on paper, as the pros do, but found the variable position markers adequate for collision avoidance.

By all means get a book, because there are probably a lot of niceties that I don't have, but my first advice would be not to rely on any of the default settings. Before long, you should be adjusting the range, gain, sea clutter and target enhancement to have any hope of getting proper use out of it. It really doesn't take long to get usefully skilled at it.
 
No idea about books on the topic but like John I've simply played around with the thing until it made some sort of sense. Whilst I have our charts displayed as North up, I always have the radar display set to heading up, so a target on the screen is easy to relate. Fiddling with the range, clutter and other filters will let you get a feel for what works best for you.

Apart from really poor visibility, I mostly use the set to help decide which way the 'pushmepullyou' ferries amongst the islands are heading. Using the range rings and a marker, you can see if it's coming towards th or going away.....

I don't know if your set has MARPA (Mini Automatic Radar Plotting Aid). I also have a Raymarine RL70C which does have it, so yours might too. If you do, it's worth using. You can mark a target with it and it will calculate the targets direction of travel, speed, closest approach and time to closest approach.

Have a read of the manual and play about with it: however, I've no doubt someone will be along with a few book suggestions soon.....
 
The RYA do one by some guy called Tim Bartlett :p Despite a chequered history on this forum his navigation books got some good recommends so it should be worth a look http://www.rya.org.uk/shop/pages/product.aspx?pid=G34%28RYADefaultCatalog%29.

The few US books I've seen on the subject tend to be slightly out-of-date and may talk about the new-fangled chart overlay, etc. Personally I'd recommend reading the manual thoroughly and then going on a one day RYA radar course. It's a bit more expensive but you'll get a lot more out of it I suspect. I know former aircrew and radar techs who've gone on it and learnt a lot.
 
I fiddled around and finally gave in and did a radar course.

Admittedly it was two full days, not the one day RYA job, but I learnt so much I now feel much more confident using it.

Bear in mind that when it's foggy, the last thing you need is to be looking at the controls and trying to work out how to work the thing.

Or... do one of the one day Raymarine familiarisation courses.

Tony.
 
grumpy_o_g said:
The RYA do one by some guy called Tim Bartlett :p Despite a chequered history on this forum his navigation books got some good recommends so it should be worth a look http://www.rya.org.uk/shop/pages/product.aspx?pid=G34%28RYADefaultCatalog%29.

The few US books I've seen on the subject tend to be slightly out-of-date and may talk about the new-fangled chart overlay, etc. Personally I'd recommend reading the manual thoroughly and then going on a one day RYA radar course. It's a bit more expensive but you'll get a lot more out of it I suspect. I know former aircrew and radar techs who've gone on it and learnt a lot.
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+1

Knowing the way that things like gain, sea clutter and rain clutter, etc. actually work seemed quite important, if I recollect correctly the course I did in 1977. A course would be the best way to make sure you don't adjust the settings to get a nice picture, which excludes some serious targets :(
 
The book recommended to me was "Superyacht Master" by Robert Avis. It covers some other stuff you may or may not be interested in, but the radar section is quite large and is reputed to be better than many dedicated books. I haven't read the other books to make my own comparison :)

Pete
 
I would recommend doing a course at Gravesend NSTC, which is the RYA course in a professional setting. They have a ship's bridge simulator which is realistic enough to make some people feel queasy, and you learn a lot.
I would avoid doing the course in a dusty classroom with a senile retired yachtsman.

For a book, Tim Bartlett would be a good start, combined with actually using the radar, it's one of those things which is a combination of theory and practice...
 
I did the one day RYA radar course a few years ago.

The advice from the instructor was that unless you are using the radar on a regular basis I.e. at least once a week or every time you go out, then with modern radar units you are better to use the automatic settings on the unit as they will be better than your attempts to use clutter and other filters say in rain or difficult conditions.The instructor did not say do not use them and get familiar with them, but many people (certainly me) use their radar infrequently and would probably be better using the automatic systems built in to the unit.

I am sure many will disagree.
 
There were some good articles in one of the mags 3-4 years back. Idiot's guide to MARPA - that sort of thing. Might be worth a search among the PDF article download section on this site.

I keep ripped-out pages in my boat folder but as it's on the boat I can't remember which magazine it was, or exactly when published. Sorry.
 
jerrytug said:
I would avoid doing the course in a dusty classroom with a senile retired yachtsman.
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Certainly I wasn't very impressed with the course I did. The instructor wasn't senile, but neither was he particularly inspiring nor apparently all that knowledgeable on the subject beyond the canned course content. There was a basic piece of simulator software on a motley collection of decrepit old laptops (one between two) but ours kept crashing so we couldn't really use it. To which the reaction was basically "Oh. That's a pity." I don't think I learned anything much beyond what I'd already read.

All that said, I do think a decent course would be worth doing. I believe there's one in the Solent which is run on a large motorboat with several radars fitted, you do the whole course, including the theory, on the water. Don't have any further details I'm afraid.

ditchcrawler said:
The advice from the instructor was that unless you are using the radar on a regular basis I.e. at least once a week or every time you go out, then with modern radar units you are better to use the automatic settings on the unit as they will be better than your attempt
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That seems logical to me, the automatic systems are programmed by experts. But I wonder how modern you need to be? I'm never very impressed with the auto gain control on my C70 (early 2000s vintage), it always seems to pick a level that hides small targets, so I tend to set it manually. I do leave the other controls on auto.

Pete
 
I recently did the one day RYA course at Emsworth which was run by the Raymarine tester so he was bang up to date. More was covered on the course than was needed for modern kit but it was good to know the basics. I agree the simulators and presentation kit were a bit archaic by modern training standards but for £80 compared to the £400 per day we pay for technical training is was good enough for me!
 
Bought a set of cd's from the guy who ran the RYA session at Southampton boat show 3 years ago, cost around £25 and came with a simulator and lessons.

Then having mastered that I anchored up in Chichester harbour for an afternoon and practiced acquiring targets ( Marpa).

Would second the comment about using the default settings if you don't use Radar too much.

Overall my biggest problem was getting the Radar and charts to overlay, but once I had that sorted it was great.
 
prv said:
That seems logical to me, the automatic systems are programmed by experts. But I wonder how modern you need to be? I'm never very impressed with the auto gain control on my C70 (early 2000s vintage), it always seems to pick a level that hides small targets, so I tend to set it manually. I do leave the other controls on auto.

Pete
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I don't agree at all, I'm afraid. I have used my old RL 70 and now my e7 and although the auto controls will stop you from hitting a supertanker, they won't be good enough to let you see small echos such as yachts and small fishing-boats. I don't have a problem with sea-clutter with my pole-mounted unit, so my default setting for gain is high enough to give a very slight speckle across the screen. In inshore conditions I usually have target enhancement enabled too, and often wakes. Although I play with them occasionally, I don't tend to use guard zones, since I am usually watching the screen often enough for the three or six mile range to be safe enough. None of this, or the position markers, takes very long to learn and it is essential to be able to make adjustments to eliminate the occasional ambiguity.
 
Many thanks Gents for the replies. Trevor thanks for the pm; way over my head with those books! I do have the manual for my plotter, so have been alternating between sea/ harbour, clutter, etc, but have not as yet utilised target, etc.
 
masterofnone said:
Many thanks Gents for the replies. Trevor thanks for the pm; way over my head with those books! I do have the manual for my plotter, so have been alternating between sea/ harbour, clutter, etc, but have not as yet utilised target, etc.
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Although I don't enjoy fog, I do enjoy playing with the radar. One thing I have discovered is that nothing you press will cause smoke to come out of the back of the display. The only thing you must do is power down the display before turning the power off at the switch panel.
 
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