Broadbans vs conventional radar

[lifeofreilly57]

Originally Posted by so34chi

I installed B&G 4G last summer, having installed their Zeus2 the prior summer. It replaced a 2000-vintage Raymarine b/w display pulse radar.

My objective is to see, in fog, the 16-19' fishing boats running on electric trolling motors within a mile of harbor entrances. They sound no fog signals and their motors are silent. The Navico 4G displays them. Sometimes faintly, but they are there. Such was never the case with the old Raymarine, which was blind to anything small and close.

We navigated in thick fog for the better part 4 days while returning home from our cruise last summer - the 4G made it safe and possible. I can't comment on newer pulse radars I haven't used, but this one accomplishes my mission. If I want to detect T-storms at a distance, I'll put a suitable pulse unit up on the mast.

Where is your unit currently mounted? My existing radar is mounted om the mast, but I want to modify the mount to an articulating mount from a fixed unit when i go to a broadband unit so I can get a real horizon when under way under sail. Which will be the majority of the of the time when underway at sea. Fixed mount is fine when motoring in fog, but I don't see that being effective while at sea under sail looking for shipping traffic.
One of my previous boats had an articulating dome mount which I found produced much better results when sailing.

[RaymondR]

Another advantage of Navico broadband radar is that the data stream is understood by a free plug-in for OpenCPN, so you can use it on your PC. Could be very cool. I use OpenCPN but have not used this function yet.

I would be very interested to hear from anyone who has used a broadband radar head with just a computer and Opencpn. Big fan of Opencpn and would like to have a radar for entering unlit anchorages after dark but don't want to buy a dedicated chart plotter.