Seeing things (or not)

I agree, you don't spend all your time fiddling with it. 95% of the time it is on auto. But if you are in a river or pilotage situation in zero viz and relying on radar to support your safe progress then you do need to fiddle or things will get missed for the reasons discussed above. The photographic analogy is ideal. Dare I say that the manufacturers don't put the knobs on their sets just for decoration /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Before trusting to radar in zero viz it is wise to check things out in good viz with a safety crew on watch - which is exactly what the OP was doing. I wonder how many people take the time and trouble?
 
There are two sorts. Those that 'double as a chartplotter' and those that provide a radar overlay. I have never used the overlay sort but I imagine that they would be brilliant. But radars do need skills to use properly. Probably worth going on a course.
 
[ QUOTE ]
The late Robert Avis used to say that in his experience with radar research, the 'hole' a boat made in the water gave the most return.

[/ QUOTE ]If that's true then maybe the fact that the target is a catamaran may be significant! In effect this would mean two identical "displacement-shaped" targets close together. If the cat was not head on then maybe the difference in target distance between these two identical and close targets was exactly an odd number of quarter wavelengths at the radar frequency. Result: the echos cancel out and the target is invisible!

Well - it's a theory /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
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