I spent a lot of time shopping for radar a few months ago. I was on a budget
and looked at JRC, Furuno and Raytheon. They each had three low priced
models and the specifications were almost identical. I went with Furuno's
1622 because the LCD was smaller than the comparably priced CRT JRC model.
I have a wakeboard tower on my 19' bowrider - serves double duty as a radar
arch. Several mounts are available including a pipe/pole so radar can be
mounted on almost any style boat.
The wiring is simple: one cable for power and one for display.
You're right about GPS - it's great to know where you're going.
Add radar and you'll know what's around you.

"Wheres the sun?" wrote in message
news:fiJ4b.322150$o%2.146075@sccrnsc02...
I own a 24' Chapparal Signature Series cruiser and enjoy weekend trips
from
Boston down the coast to Cape Cod.

A few weeks ago I found myself caught in the worst fog I have ever
encountered, right down to the water, I could barely make out my pulpit.
Thank god for my Garmin 232 GPS to make it home. My fingernails were dug
deeply into the steering wheel as we continously listened to the Harbor
Cruise ships' horns alerting us of their presence, we finally made it back
in one piece.

Can someone recommend a decent radar system for my boat. I do not have an
arch so installation tips would be appreciated as well.

Thanks in advance!

Best cost / performance ratio would be one of the JRC black and white LCD
models. Furuno would be good in any model. Stay away from Raymarine, they're
pretty much making only crap since breaking away from Raytheon.

--


Keith
__
Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too
dark to read.
"Wheres the sun?" wrote in message
news:fiJ4b.322150$o%2.146075@sccrnsc02...
I own a 24' Chapparal Signature Series cruiser and enjoy weekend trips
from
Boston down the coast to Cape Cod.

A few weeks ago I found myself caught in the worst fog I have ever
encountered, right down to the water, I could barely make out my pulpit.
Thank god for my Garmin 232 GPS to make it home. My fingernails were dug
deeply into the steering wheel as we continously listened to the Harbor
Cruise ships' horns alerting us of their presence, we finally made it back
in one piece.

Can someone recommend a decent radar system for my boat. I do not have an
arch so installation tips would be appreciated as well.

Thanks in advance!

http://www.raymarine.com/raymarine/P...roduct _id=30

Take a look at the SL72 small boat radars from Raymarine. The SL72RC
adds the chart system to the radar when you add a Raymarine WAAS-GPS
receiver, which is built right into the little GPS antenna and puts
out data to the radar without the extra box. (Raystar 120). Be
careful not to click a waypoint on a bouy or you'll run right over it.
You can add the Raymarine digital sounder now or later. The neat
thing about all this is the radar is already setup to synchronize and
overlay the chart, sonar data, radar video, etc., all on one neat
display. Raymarine has a new gyro-compass to replace their older
compass sensor, which also gives you gyro-accurate rate of turn data
to the compass sensor. I've just installed that to a new installation
aboard a friend's Amel 41 ketch. He has the larger SL70RC color
display, which is nice/pretty/etc., but functionally identical except
for color and price. We're using the 24 mile 2KW radome, too. 24
miles is forever in a sailboat.

From the top of a 24' cabin roof, I'd expect about 8-10 mile range to
boats sticking out of the water, and maybe 15 miles to a ship or
tower, because your natural horizon is about that far. It would give
you plenty of range for the fog problem. The nice thing about a LOWER
antenna is that it can see targets much closer to the boat, like that
bouy you're trying to run over, without the radar shooting over the
near target that doesn't stick way up. I had the radar mounted on a
15' radar "pipe" installation on the stern of my friend's previous
Endeavour 35 sloop and the little Raymarine 2KW 18" radome could
clearly see boats as close as 5 slips away from us in the marina,
clearly showing the outline of the docks all the way across the
marina. That low down, it didn't paint the 55' bridge we sail under,
but clearly showed the position of the bridge supports into the water,
where it counts. Motoring through the gauntlet of anchored-out boats,
marina docks and bridges in heavy fog would be quite easy until you
needed to see your target slip inside the radar's minimum range, which
is limited by the time the radar transmitter's output is on the air,
the "pulse width", which in a Raymarine on 1/8th mile range is VERY
narrow, giving you amazing resolution.

The gyro-compass output even lets you see which direction your boat is
pointed, right on the radar's overlay display, with the boat standing
dead still. The WAAS compensated GPS works great as an anchor alarm
anchored out, too. The chart plotter/GPS/gyrocompass works without
the radar transmitting. If you have traffic near where your anchorage
is, you can leave the whole thing running with the radar's computer
watching out for the traffic from your anchorage, alarming when a
moving target gets inside your alarm's setting and warning you of any
crash courses, whether you are moving or not.

Works great!



On Mon, 01 Sep 2003 15:09:00 GMT, "Wheres the sun?"
wrote:

I own a 24' Chapparal Signature Series cruiser and enjoy weekend trips from
Boston down the coast to Cape Cod.

A few weeks ago I found myself caught in the worst fog I have ever
encountered, right down to the water, I could barely make out my pulpit.
Thank god for my Garmin 232 GPS to make it home. My fingernails were dug
deeply into the steering wheel as we continously listened to the Harbor
Cruise ships' horns alerting us of their presence, we finally made it back
in one piece.

Can someone recommend a decent radar system for my boat. I do not have an
arch so installation tips would be appreciated as well.

Thanks in advance!



Larry

Extremely intelligent life must exist in the universe.
You can tell because they never tried to contact us.

On Mon, 01 Sep 2003 16:57:37 GMT, "Charlie J"
wrote:


Larry-
I could not find the gyro-compass on the Raymarine site...what is its model
number?
Charlie
JTB Marine Service
St. Petersburg, FL


Look in:
http://www.raymarine.com/raymarine/P...oduc t_id=699

This unit replaced the optically-read, mechanical compass sensor we
used with this radar on the last boat, an Endeavour 35 sloop. The old
sensor works great, as compasses go. It was mounted in the cabin near
centerline and was totally protected by a custom-made mahogany box so
noone could bump it.

If anyone needs the compass sensor, let me know in reply to this post
and I'll connect you to its owner who no longer needs it. It's in the
same new condition it was the day I mounted it in the protective
box....perfect. It's fully self-calibrating and puts out NMEA data,
directly. It was the NMEA model, not Seatalk, so it would work with
any system needing compass data..... I've forgotten the model number
but it's the compass unit that's black, with a SeaTalk-looking
connector on it where a round bottom compass is suspended under a
square plastic mounting that bolts to a vertical bulkhead.


Larry

Extremely intelligent life must exist in the universe.
You can tell because they never tried to contact us.

On Mon, 1 Sep 2003 10:46:14 -0500, "Keith"
wrote:

Best cost / performance ratio would be one of the JRC black and white LCD
models. Furuno would be good in any model. Stay away from Raymarine, they're
pretty much making only crap since breaking away from Raytheon.

I'm interested in why you know Raymarine is crap. My buddy's boat has
the SL70CRCPlus, 2KW radome, gyrocompass, WAAS-GPS in its multi-vendor
network I installed and the only problem we had was some water in the
radome which Raymarine simply gave us a new one, no questions asked,
to replace it. The units functioned flawlessly at sea and I've
recommended them to other boaters from our experience. Even with the
little 2KW planar stripline antenna array, I can see ships far beyond
the 24 mile range advertised. The MARPA is like having military
target acquisition and ranging and makes a helluva great toy during
long watches at night....(c;

Lemme know what you know and what problems you've actually had with
Raymarine products.....please!.....before we buy more!


Larry

Extremely intelligent life must exist in the universe.
You can tell because they never tried to contact us.

Larry W4CSC wrote:

Oh, sorry but I forgot to mention that Raymarine's SeaTalk data
network is as simple to hookup as a cabin light. There are only 3
wires....+DC, -DC(ground) and data. They couldn't make it simpler.
The GPS and Gyrocompass and other instruments on Seatalk are simply
hooked together, in parallel, wire for wire and when you power one of
them, you power all of them. I have a Raymarine connection box on a
bulkhead behind the helm where they all come together. It has
European screw terminals in it. Nothing is simpler.



Larry W4CSC


You do? On your 16' jetski boat...or did you buy a bigger boat?


--
* * *
email sent to will *never* get to me.

An heretical question -- are you really sure you want a radar?

I should say that I'm no Luddite -- when we finish with Fintry, she'll
have two radars, a 12kw, six foot Furuno and a small Koden backup, but
my wife and I are both experienced radar operators and our passages
are generally long enough so that our watchkeepers get some training
in the basics. But using radar on a relatively large, stable boat,
with autopilot, and often two operators in the wheelhouse is very
different from driving a small boat with one hand and eye and trying
to make sense of a lot of targets on a small screen with the other.

I would say fairly strongly that you can't operate a radar in Cape Cod
Bay and drive the boat at the same time. There are too many targets
-- boats, bouys, fishing floats with reflectors, a few ships, and so
forth. Each of them requires separate attention to figure out whether
it's a danger or not, and on a small radar, with only two electronic
bearing lines, that means you have to keep a mental picture of what
you've looked at and what you haven't.

So, unless you're perfectly comfortable with dividing the two jobs --
driving and radar operator -- and handing one off to someone else,
think twice about the radar. I'm based in Boston and learned to sail
down East, so I do understand how white your knuckles can get in fog,
but you can minimize risk by staying on the edge of the channels,
stopping and listening every few minutes, and watching carefully.

If you think you're going to go ahead with the radar, get someone to
take you out with a radar and actually use it for a few hours. Best
to do this on a clear day, so you can compare the radar picture to the
visual. This is the best way to understand that it doesn't tell you
much except that there's something there. I'd volunteer for this, but
Fintry's still in England and doesn't have an engine at the moment, so
you'd have to wait 'til next summer.

As for brands, go the Newport Boat Show (9/11-9/14) and play with the
major brands (Simrad, Raymarine, Furuno, Koden/Sitex, JRC). I would
discount most of the talk of quality differences as Ford versus Chevy
and pick the one that seems the most logical to you. The Koden on
Fintry was purchased by her former owner (the Royal Navy), so I didn't
choose it, but it works perfectly well. While we chose a Furuno for
our big radar for Fintry, we took a Raytheon around the world on
Swee****er, and I like the JRC in the mid range. Simrad is very
interesting and has a different user interface. I haven't looked at
the size you'll need.

Make sure your mount gets the beam above everyone on the boat all the
time -- there's enough microwave energy there to pay attention. This
means you'll probably need an arch, as it will weigh less than a pole.
Put your white running light up there, too, above the radar.

Jim Woodward
www.mvfintry.com

"Wheres the sun?" wrote in message news:fiJ4b.322150$o%2.146075@sccrnsc02...
I own a 24' Chapparal Signature Series cruiser and enjoy weekend trips from
Boston down the coast to Cape Cod.

A few weeks ago I found myself caught in the worst fog I have ever
encountered, right down to the water, I could barely make out my pulpit.
Thank god for my Garmin 232 GPS to make it home. My fingernails were dug
deeply into the steering wheel as we continously listened to the Harbor
Cruise ships' horns alerting us of their presence, we finally made it back
in one piece.

Can someone recommend a decent radar system for my boat. I do not have an
arch so installation tips would be appreciated as well.

Thanks in advance!

Thank you for the experience and comments. The first 2KW dome had
water in it, too. I might just seal it up tight when the mast climber
goes up to fix the light on the mizzen. Sounds like a problem area.

When I first installed the 2KW dome on the old Endeavour, one of the
cheap crimped wires fell out of the cheap control cable plug you put
inside the dome. Upon inspecting this plug, I decided to solder all
connections. I have a tiny tipped solding iron I use with
surface-mounted parts that's temperature controlled. The wires fell
right out of the original, Raymarine-made plugs on top.

I'm still ****ed that ALL manufacturers are trying to use PC board
cheap plugs for interconnect in a marine environment. Case in point
is the new Icom M802 HF SSB with the Icom AT-140 antenna tuner with
the pc board control plug EXPOSED TO THE OCEAN! How stupid can they
be?! One splash and the 12VDC in the plug would simply electroplate
it into oblivion....(sigh). I unsoldered the whole affair and threw
it in the trash where it belonged. Icom left out the screw terminal
PC board mount to save 50 cents, so I had to directly solder my
control cable to the PC board after feeding the cable through the
cheap plastic "watertight" (PUN!) connector through the case. We'll
see how it does. ANYTHING is better than what the factory sent
me....yecch!

On Tue, 2 Sep 2003 07:04:22 -0500, "Keith"
wrote:

Well, I had a Raytheon CRT radar on my last boat, that worked very well. 4KW
open array, nice unit. I wanted to stick with them.

I saw FOUR new open array installations replaced under warranty on my pier
alone, all from water intrusion. The techs replacing them said they were
replacing at least half of all the open array units installed for the same
problem. Cheap engineering.

I went ahead and bought the Raymarine 7" color LCD radar (standalone) but
went with the 4KW dome, since it was obvious that the open arrays were
faulty. About 6 months after I purchased it, it quit while I was on a trip.

The tech came out, tested it all out as best he could, said the cable was
OK, so he had to send the entire unit to Raymarine. It took 7 WEEKS to get
it through their service department and back. Good thing I didn't need this
thing to earn a living! They said their service department was swamped. Now
that only means one of two things, or both. Either they're understaffed, or
a high proportion of what they sell is coming back, or both.

When we got it back, they had replaced something, don't remember what. We
remounted everything, still wouldn't work. Turns out the cable was bad. No
cuts, punctures, etc., just "went bad". Replaced under warranty, but I was
still without radar for about 9 weeks.

Since posting that on another mail list, I got a rash of similar experiences
from other folks on premature failures of Raymarine equipment. A lot of
cost-saving engineering seems to be going on there, making equipment that's
less reliable, but makes a lot more profit for them.

I'm stuck with mine now, and hope it continues to work. If I had to do it
all over again though, I'd stick with Furuno. Don't get me wrong, when it
works, it's great! I'm just worried about the reliability now... what if
this had happened when I REALLY needed it, or was down in the islands
somewhere?

--


Keith
__
Abandon the search for Truth; settle for a good fantasy.
"Larry W4CSC" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 1 Sep 2003 10:46:14 -0500, "Keith"
wrote:

Best cost / performance ratio would be one of the JRC black and white LCD
models. Furuno would be good in any model. Stay away from Raymarine,
they're
pretty much making only crap since breaking away from Raytheon.

I'm interested in why you know Raymarine is crap. My buddy's boat has
the SL70CRCPlus, 2KW radome, gyrocompass, WAAS-GPS in its multi-vendor
network I installed and the only problem we had was some water in the
radome which Raymarine simply gave us a new one, no questions asked,
to replace it. The units functioned flawlessly at sea and I've
recommended them to other boaters from our experience. Even with the
little 2KW planar stripline antenna array, I can see ships far beyond
the 24 mile range advertised. The MARPA is like having military
target acquisition and ranging and makes a helluva great toy during
long watches at night....(c;

Lemme know what you know and what problems you've actually had with
Raymarine products.....please!.....before we buy more!


Larry

Extremely intelligent life must exist in the universe.
You can tell because they never tried to contact us.



Larry

Extremely intelligent life must exist in the universe.
You can tell because they never tried to contact us.

On Mon, 01 Sep 2003 21:17:04 -0400, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Tue, 02 Sep 2003 00:20:50 GMT, (Larry W4CSC) wrote:
Look in:
http://www.raymarine.com/raymarine/P...oduc t_id=699

This unit replaced the optically-read, mechanical compass sensor we
used with this radar on the last boat, an Endeavour 35 sloop.
====================

Uhhh Larry, that's a "Gyro Stabilized fluxgate compass"
which is quite a different animal than a true gyro compass
which requires no magnetic field at all.

So it is. It replaced the ST-80 compass sensor used on the old boat.


Larry

Extremely intelligent life must exist in the universe.
You can tell because they never tried to contact us.

On Mon, 01 Sep 2003 21:39:06 -0400, Harry Krause
wrote:

Larry W4CSC wrote:

Oh, sorry but I forgot to mention that Raymarine's SeaTalk data
network is as simple to hookup as a cabin light. There are only 3
wires....+DC, -DC(ground) and data. They couldn't make it simpler.
The GPS and Gyrocompass and other instruments on Seatalk are simply
hooked together, in parallel, wire for wire and when you power one of
them, you power all of them. I have a Raymarine connection box on a
bulkhead behind the helm where they all come together. It has
European screw terminals in it. Nothing is simpler.



Larry W4CSC


You do? On your 16' jetski boat...or did you buy a bigger boat?


I've installed an extensive electronic suite in a friend's '85 Amel
Sharpi 41 ketch we sailed up from Satellite Beach, FL a few weeks ago.
We're going cruising in it soon.


Larry

Extremely intelligent life must exist in the universe.
You can tell because they never tried to contact us.