Opinions on Radar

[Fearnow]

I plan to add radar to my Lagoon 420 and am leaning towards the Simrad. The boat has two Raymarine chart plotters (2008) but the screen at the helm is small and hard to see in bright sun. What I liked about the Simrad, is being able to loop around the boat, any distance. I'm a little hesitant about Garmin, after one going bad after getting some rain on it. No warrantee.

[jeremiason]

What plotters are you currently using, C or E Systems?

I didn't understand you comment about "Loop around the boat"... Are you considering a Wifi or Bluetooth application?

I highly recommend radar and wouldn't leave home without it. It is a great tool for not only "Seeing" in limited visibility, but for collision avoidance and navigation.

[Fearnow]

With the Simrad, you can set a custom circle around the boat and if anything comes in the circle, and alarm will go off. Consequently, if a vessel approaches from the aft or side, I will be warned.

[captain58sailin]

Most radars offer that feature. I prefer Furuno.

[goboatingnow]

All do , these days , including versions that offer segmented guard circles , I quite like Raymarine , Garmin and Simrad radars . I find there little to choose between the models in the typical 2-4kw units used on boats

Dave

[Fearnow]

Originally Posted by captain58sailin

Most radars offer that feature. I prefer Furuno.

Since I am new to this, I didn't know. The salesman at West Marine, led me to believe that only Simrad had this feature.

[captain58sailin]

No Sir, we have been using guard zones on Furunos for years, perhaps the salesman was unaware.

[captain58sailin]

How do you like the picture on the Garmin radar ? My furuno is getting a little long in the tooth and I'm thinking of upgrading.

[sabray]

Have a garmin that integrates with chartplotter. Excellent set up. Had a older Furuno that was also excellent but that was years ago. At that time for Furuno had the best raster scan features. It tuned easily i used in some zero visability harbors and back then it was phenomenal. Today's radars are even better. The garmin is excellent. Easy to tune.
I think staying within one manufacturer is good. There is so much stuff to tune and connect. Having it be intuitive and similar helps get the most out of it. You shouldn't need to get the manuals out to make adjustments. Wether its response time on your ap or filtering the radar.
In that I mean make sure you can understand it and it is intuitive to you.

[SvenG]

Have the Simrad HD and it has been indispensable down here in Mexico. Sailing along the coast at night with the C-Map charts 1-2 NM off would be absolutely nerve-racking if we couldn't bring up the radar to see where the coastline really is and get the offset.

My one gripe is that the polarization of the NX 40 screen is such that you have to tilt your head 45° to the left to get maximum brightness if you wear polarized sunglasses. That is also true for our laptop.

We picked it because of the amazing resolution and the fact that it draws so little and does not need time to power up.

When we were still in Ca (back in 2012) we could radar-see the mainland from Catalina, about 24 Nm. I don't know if we ever saw any large vessel further away than 24-25 miles but that's about 30 minutes for a reasonably fast container ship when you include your contribution to the closing speed.



-Sven

[a64pilot]

I believe it's actually only software that makes the Garmin Radar HD, but whatever it is I'm impressed with it, your mileage may vary of course. NMEA 2000 is supposed to be a standard, but my limited experience with it is that your better off if you want to network, to do so within one brand

[SvenG]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

I believe it's actually only software that makes the Garmin Radar HD

If it is truly HD or broadband or whatever description they use it is not the software. It is the radar itself that is Solid State. It is such low power that I believe you can touch the outside of the dome and still not exceed the permitted "safe" radiation, but you'd be dumb to do that


-Sven

[nhschneider]

We installed our all-Garmin electronics package (radar, chartplotter, sailing instruments, AIS, sonar, etc) about three years and 20,000 miles ago. It has all worked flawlessly and we find that all the features are very easy to use, even the more obscure ones.

[sck5]

I have had the garmin radar for a while - back and forth to the Caribbean and also to Bermuda as well as up and down the coast. Really excellent unit, can't say enough good things about it. Would not want to go up and down Chesapeake Bay at night or in fog without radar. Have been on other boats with furuno and raymarine and they seem to work well too. I would tend to favor the one that is the same brand as my plotter just to make my life easier. I have an all garmin system except for the autopilot which is raymarine. A little trickier to set up but seamless once you have installed it.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

I believe it's actually only software that makes the Garmin Radar HD, but whatever it is I'm impressed with it, your mileage may vary of course. NMEA 2000 is supposed to be a standard, but my limited experience with it is that your better off if you want to network, to do so within one brand

All radars described as HD , SHD or UHD are simply a base radar unit of a particular horizontal beam-width but using digital signal processing to enhance the image.

Size of the antenna is still the defining factor

Dave