Realistically priced radar mountings?

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maby

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I'm planning an electronics upgrade including fitting radar to our boat but I'm horrified by the price that Scanstrut charge for a few bits of metal! A nice new Raymarine Quantum radome which represents the state of the art in consumer radar technology is going to cost around £1200, but a 2m aluminium pole, a couple of brackets and a bag of nuts and bolts is going to add another £800 to the bill! Anyone know of anyone in the Solent area that will make up radar poles at reasonable prices?
 
I have a 3 inch S/S pole with simple brackets at the bottom-just like Scanstrut's overpriced kit-which then supports a heavy turned sleeve about 4 inches deep welded to a 5mm S/S disc sized and drilled to fit the radar dome. The sleeve is fixed with a single through bolt, as is the pole to the brackets.
Dont forget the cutout at the bottom to make the cable exit.

It cost £120.00ish from a firm in Steventon called specialist welding six years ago. They also made the pod mount for the Scanstrut pod for the plotter-£20.00 IIRC.

Any S/S fabricator should be able to do it from a simple drawing.

They do stuff for Aerospace and Williams F1-should be alright then..................................
 
The OP echos my thoughts exactly re. Scanstrut. Given the 50% weight reduction in newGen radars a Scanstrut is now both overpriced and over engineered.
 
jonjo5 said:
The OP echos my thoughts exactly re. Scanstrut. Given the 50% weight reduction in newGen radars a Scanstrut is now both overpriced and over engineered.
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It is ridiculous, isn't it? And they can't claim that the price is down to it being a niche market - they have a virtual monopoly on the market. Virtually every Raymarine, Simrad, B&G and Furuno consumer radar sold sits on a Scanstrut mount of some kind - if it's economical for Raymarine to sell a very complex piece of electronics at £1200, how can it be necessary for some metal chop-shop to charge £800 for the pole to hang it on?
 
maby said:
Virtually every Raymarine, Simrad, B&G and Furuno consumer radar sold sits on a Scanstrut mount of some kind - if it's economical for Raymarine to sell a very complex piece of electronics at £1200, how can it be necessary for some metal chop-shop to charge £800 for the pole to hang it on?
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What does "necessary" have to do with it?

If virtually every radar sold is perched on their products, the price is clearly not too high for the market. In which case, why would any sensible business choose to reduce it?

Pete
 
prv said:
What does "necessary" have to do with it?

If virtually every radar sold is perched on their products, the price is clearly not too high for the market. In which case, why would any sensible business choose to reduce it?

Pete
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Quite true - it's down to the boat buying public to make a stand - as I am doing by asking for recommendations for a local custom built solution. I am surprised that there are not more complaints - you can easily be charged as much for the metal work as you pay for the high tech electronics sitting on top of it! I suppose it is the fact that there are several manufacturers of electronics, but just one Scanstrut that allows them to get away with it!
 
maby said:
Quite true - it's down to the boat buying public to make a stand - as I am doing by asking for recommendations for a local custom built solution. I am surprised that there are not more complaints - you can easily be charged as much for the metal work as you pay for the high tech electronics sitting on top of it! I suppose it is the fact that there are several manufacturers of electronics, but just one Scanstrut that allows them to get away with it!
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As Pete suggests as they are the dominant supplier their products meet buyers' needs. Everybody has the alternative to find an alternative fabricator to make one. Just wonder why so few seem to do that - or why, if it is possible to make one substantially cheaper why they have no competition.
 
please post up details as I am also in the market for the same Raymarine quantum and mounting pole as well, maybe we can get a discount on a group buy???
 
To return to the original question - I'm currently having a new transom for the Contraption made by this guy: http://mercuryweldingandfabrication.co.uk/ . Haven't had it back yet so can't give a definitive comment on the whole transaction, but looking at other things he's made I have no doubts whatsoever about his skills. He works in aluminium and stainless and presumably ordinary steels.

But it's the Solent, plus two entire cities, there must be dozens of welders and fabricators to choose from.

Pete
 
cueball said:
please post up details as I am also in the market for the same Raymarine quantum and mounting pole as well, maybe we can get a discount on a group buy???
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We can but hope - though my mounting pole will be a bit unusual due to the layout of the boat and the cockpit enclosure - hopefully any discount will not be dependent on all the items being identical!

I'm going to be snowed under with work for a week or two and may not follow up on the suggestions posted here immediately - if anyone else is inclined to negotiate, I'm definitely after a pole about 2m high configured to take a Quantum and deck mounting. The layout of our boat simply does not work with transom mounting.
 
dunedin said:
I agree entirely about the high price of the scan strut relative to much reduced and lighter radar scanners.

But it is a mast mount I am interested in any off shelf alternatives (as well as custom made)
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The Scanstrut mast mounts are a lot less expensive in absolute terms, even if they are ridiculously overpriced for what they are! I have been considering a mast mount, but I'm not happy about the genoa hitting the radome on each tack...
 
maby said:
The Scanstrut mast mounts are a lot less expensive in absolute terms, even if they are ridiculously overpriced for what they are! I have been considering a mast mount, but I'm not happy about the genoa hitting the radome on each tack...
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The radar tends to be fitted on the side of the mast or first spreader on our type of boat - can't fit anything in front of mast.
 
dunedin said:
The radar tends to be fitted on the side of the mast or first spreader on our type of boat - can't fit anything in front of mast.
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Hmmm, in our case I have thought about that, but don't fancy the significant shadow off one beam due to the wide mast section.
 
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