Radar?

[Seattleflyfisher]

What do you see with Radar?  Any chance you see floating logs.

[Kimbrey]

Other boats, buoys, land, depending on size of the flock and distance...bird schools, rain squalls & land.  I don't have any experience with a radar on our size of vessel (yet) but seeing a log or dead head I think would be very hard especially with a small screen.  The scanner is close to the water on a vessel of our size so it's possible on a calm day.

After fishing Sekiu in last fall I got to experience thick fog on my 17' Trophy.  I couldn't believe some of the boats running full blast in that fog.  Radar or not those people were nuts.  That's why I'm in the process right now of installing one on my Arima.  The dome is mounted, now all I have to do is figure how to run the wires.

[Salmon King]

not normally SFF  

Generally speaking you will see anything that will relect the pulse back to you.  To see a log the pulse would need to be radiating into the water.  Main problem is that the log doesn't float high enough in the water to provide a reflection.

You will however get a reflection off of heavy rain squalls, other boats (larger ones)...(a smaller boat or let's say one with a smaller cross-section (surface area) will need to have a reflector positioned high up on the craft).  This is the silver ball you see on many sailboats.  Also large groups of birds, land masses, etc. 


I hope this is of some help to ya.
Terry B.

[Seattleflyfisher]

KimBrey what did you buy?  Did you mount it flush to your top? I am looking at getting something soon.

[croaker stroker]

So far, I am very happy with my radar. I can see even smaller mooring bouys. I can also see waves outside of the harbor mouth. 

If you turn your gain up enough to make out a low profile log, you would probably also get "sea clutter". If you turned up your "STC" (sea clutter suppression) you would probably also erase any log. 

[Kimbrey]

I bought a Raymarine system.  Not sure why, I guess it was the best option for the wanted screen size I wanted.  Actually I bought it last January but then I left for Alaska so I'm installing now.  I had a strong interest in the Lorance/Simrad broadband radar.  What I could read sounded like it would be good with close in detail. 
The guy that built my rocket launcher built me a mount out of scrap that he had so it's not quite a flush mount.  I mounted it forward.  Now to figure how the heck to get the wires under the dash.  As you probably know Arima has a small tube running down the forward corner between the window panes.  Mines full so I have to figure how to get the wire down.  I guess I'll get my RotoZip out.
Here's a picture of the mount with dome:

[Seattleflyfisher]

 Nice.....

C80 setup?  Is that a 4k radome?

[Kimbrey]

C120W
Yes the 4kw dome