MacGregorSailors.com

That's definitely a magnetron tube driven set. Very, very old school technology. Like 1950's. Same type of tube that your microwave oven uses.
They are heavier, consume more power and while it's average power isn't terrible, that's a 4kw pulse of microwave several hundred times per second. There is no advantage that I can see to going with a magnetron based radar. The cost is roughly equal to solid state.

I'd really go solid state.

BOAT wrote:Hey Tim, what do you think about the specs on this unit?


ANTENNA
Peak Output Power 4 kW
Type ø488 mm Radome (19 inch)
RF TRANSCEIVER
Frequency 9410 ± 30 MHz
Range Scales 0.125 to 24 nm
Antenna Rotation Speed 24 rpm

It's called a furono 1st watch wireless

http://www.furuno.com/special/en/wireless/radar/



It looks like a nice solution for a MAC - does it use the pulsing thingy and CW and bit codes or whatever 'stuff' that you think is good?

I'll try to cut down on the real estate by not posting the quotes by Gazmn and TimLa but I got your messages. Magneeto or Magnets or Magnatrons are BAD - okay - thanks - I did not know that. I have seen X-men so I can imagine. Anyways - I was not aware that we were mounting microwave ovens on the mast - I remember in a earlier post we were mounting coffee makers up there so I guess I should not be surprized.

I will not go fast at night because of what you guys said - (I never had the ability to go fast at night until I got a MAC so since I have never done it I guess I won't be missing anything.) If you find a radar that will allow me to go fast that would be great. I guess they don't have one yet.

BOAT wrote:Anyways - I was not aware that we were mounting microwave ovens on the mast - I remember in a earlier post we were mounting coffee makers up there so I guess I should not be surprized.

Well, sort of - home microwave ovens work at 2.45 GHz while marine radar works at 3 GHz (S-band) or 10 GHz (X-band). So don't wrap yourself around that big 25 kW rotating boom and take a nap while it's running. Or even that little 19" 4 kW dome, for that matter.

Man, it's getting crowded up there,




Okay, so I have decided to not mount the microwave oven on the mast - I sure liked the ipad option but it's not worth the sun tan - I can get that anytime I want at the Annual Atom Bomb Festival in Santa Fe Springs CA.

Anyone notice the displays are both in the portrait orientation which seems common sense for a navigation tool?

I was checking out units at west marine and surprised basically everything under 12" was all widescreen. All the screens are pretty much the same pixel and physical height, they just keep stretching them wider as you go from 5-9" displays. Makes sense for split screen fishing vs using 2 separate units, but not for navigation.

BOAT wrote:Man, it's getting crowded up there,




Okay, so I have decided to not mount the microwave oven on the mast - I sure liked the ipad option but it's not worth the sun tan - I can get that anytime I want at the Annual Atom Bomb Festival in Santa Fe Springs CA.

Boat
Where,s the sink !!

J

Highlander wrote:

BOAT wrote:Man, it's getting crowded up there,




Okay, so I have decided to not mount the microwave oven on the mast - I sure liked the ipad option but it's not worth the sun tan - I can get that anytime I want at the Annual Atom Bomb Festival in Santa Fe Springs CA.

Boat
Where,s the sink !!

J

Hey John - did you put a microwave on your mast? The guys here told me that the radar was gonna cook my balls and make me bald so I wanted to warn you about that thing - did you buy one?

Hey mark
I heard Ur balls r on the mantlepiece & ur avatar show,s ur Bald already anyway so what,s ur Issue !!

The Raymarine Quantum Chirp Radome is HD Solid State "No Megatron" so gives out less radiation than a cell phone weigh,s about 12#

But if u wanna go with that Furuno Radar Unit & fry ur Brain,s out go for it
plus that radome weighs like 23# & u,ll have to mount it way up there in that mast plus give it it,s own batt bank ! if using it while sailing

U know there,s an old Wife,s Tale that women tell their Husbands best friends if he,s ever in an accident "don,t bring me back a cripple"

So if u r set on Furuno maybe check this unit out I did not price it plus finding a dealer authorized to do repairs could b another issue
http://www.furuno.com/special/en/radar/drs4d-nxt/

I,m planning on mounting my radome either on my rear cockpit arch or on a swing armed pole above the arch so as not to interfere with my 3 solar panels ! yet to b mounted

Just Sayin Thats All

J

BtB, I think John's Raymarine radar shows up wirelessly on his iPad too

Highlander wrote:Hey mark
I heard Ur balls r on the mantlepiece & ur avatar show,s ur Bald already anyway so what,s ur Issue !!

The Raymarine Quantum Chirp Radome is HD Solid State "No Megatron" so gives out less radiation than a cell phone weigh,s about 12#

But if u wanna go with that Furuno Radar Unit & fry ur Brain,s out go for it
plus that radome weighs like 23# & u,ll have to mount it way up there in that mast plus give it it,s own batt bank ! if using it while sailing

U know there,s an old Wife,s Tale that women tell their Husbands best friends if he,s ever in an accident "don,t bring me back a cripple"

So if u r set on Furuno maybe check this unit out I did not price it plus finding a dealer authorized to do repairs could b another issue
http://www.furuno.com/special/en/radar/drs4d-nxt/

I,m planning on mounting my radome either on my rear cockpit arch or on a swing armed pole above the arch so as not to interfere with my 3 solar panels ! yet to b mounted

Just Sayin Thats All

J

Okay! captain HIGHLANDER! I'm not set on any brand - I already have a raymarine backbone AND a garmin backbone on board already so I think either one of those would be okay - and since the Furiorino thing will melt my bones i figure a raymarine backbone is better than no backbone at all! PEE SSS (P.S.) I'm not worried about frying brains! - I lost my mind in an automobile accident many years ago so brains are the least of my worries! And I don't want the microwave on the mast either because of the weight (already got a coffee maker up there) don't need any more stuff on the mast!

If I were you Boat, I'd look into expanding the Raymarine Backbone, between your two choices. What is you chartplatter/ sounder? If it's Garmin, so be it. You can expand that line too. With Rarmarine you can do: Chartplotter/ sounder, 3D sounder, autopilot, chirp radar etc. There all world class. Garmin is good but I wouldn't consider as good across all those platforms. & you can tie in your E-tec info

Gazmn wrote:If I were you Boat, I'd look into expanding the Raymarine Backbone, between your two choices. What is you chartplatter/ sounder? If it's Garmin, so be it. You can expand that line too. With Rarmarine you can do: Chartplotter/ sounder, 3D sounder, autopilot, chirp radar etc. There all world class. Garmin is good but I wouldn't consider as good across all those platforms. & you can tie in your E-tec info

I have all the motor info coming in - it works real nice - the GARMIN unit is the one that creates the WIFI network on the boat and puts all the stuff on both back bones on the network. I have plenty of room on both back bones for whatever I want to add. (One thing I have a lot of is bones - back bones, trombones, saxabones - 'dem bones - I got it covered. There is a port on the back of the Garmin for a chirp and a side scan sonar - that's cool too because you can drag the sounder behind the boat or put it in the water on a stick and find whales.

I did not consider the radar much . . is there a garmin radar? Should I be looking at that? With it give me a sun tan?

BOAT wrote:

Gazmn wrote:If I were you Boat, I'd look into expanding the Raymarine Backbone, between your two choices. What is you chartplatter/ sounder? If it's Garmin, so be it. You can expand that line too. With Rarmarine you can do: Chartplotter/ sounder, 3D sounder, autopilot, chirp radar etc. There all world class. Garmin is good but I wouldn't consider as good across all those platforms. & you can tie in your E-tec info

I have all the motor info coming in - it works real nice - the GARMIN unit is the one that creates the WIFI network on the boat and puts all the stuff on both back bones on the network. I have plenty of room on both back bones for whatever I want to add. (One thing I have a lot of is bones - back bones, trombones, saxabones - 'dem bones - I got it covered. There is a port on the back of the Garmin for a chirp and a side scan sonar - that's cool too because you can drag the sounder behind the boat or put it in the water on a stick and find whales.

I did not consider the radar much . . is there a garmin radar? Should I be looking at that? With it give me a sun tan?

I do not remember what Garmin you have. I figure it has the Garmin network plug. The Radar does not go thru the NMEA2000. Yes they have Radar assemblies. From around $1100 and up.

You say you have 2 back bones? Are you running the NMEA2000 and Raymarine sea talk seperate?

grady wrote:

BOAT wrote:

Gazmn wrote:If I were you Boat, I'd look into expanding the Raymarine Backbone, between your two choices. What is you chartplatter/ sounder? If it's Garmin, so be it. You can expand that line too. With Rarmarine you can do: Chartplotter/ sounder, 3D sounder, autopilot, chirp radar etc. There all world class. Garmin is good but I wouldn't consider as good across all those platforms. & you can tie in your E-tec info

I have all the motor info coming in - it works real nice - the GARMIN unit is the one that creates the WIFI network on the boat and puts all the stuff on both back bones on the network. I have plenty of room on both back bones for whatever I want to add. (One thing I have a lot of is bones - back bones, trombones, saxabones - 'dem bones - I got it covered. There is a port on the back of the Garmin for a chirp and a side scan sonar - that's cool too because you can drag the sounder behind the boat or put it in the water on a stick and find whales.

I did not consider the radar much . . is there a garmin radar? Should I be looking at that? With it give me a sun tan?

I do not remember what Garmin you have. I figure it has the Garmin network plug. The Radar does not go thru the NMEA2000. Yes they have Radar assemblies. From around $1100 and up.

You say you have 2 back bones? Are you running the NMEA2000 and Raymarine sea talk seperate?

Yes, 2 backbones - a Garmin and a Seatalk - they are connected to each other with a converter cable I made with help from RayMarine and mastreb. All the messages flow back and forth among all the devices with no problems so I suspect everything is mostly talking NMEA2000 but I must admit I do have some 0183 devices on board too and they are talking over the backbone just fine also.

The one thing that will not talk over the Garmin backbone is my RayMarine remote dongle - I think that is because the dongle is a secure propitiatory wireless radio protocol that is not recognized by computers. I have a RayMarine wireless station inside the pedestal that makes all my RayMarine equipment available on their remote devices, but that system is not penetrable by any other system - You can get a MADMAN remote to control the RayMarine but if you do that you need their radio base station also - and I think their base station can be accessed by any wifi device. Not sure on that one. I guess RayMArine did not want people accessing the AP with a cell phone or computer. I can send my navigation instructions to the AP thru the chart plotter over an iPad, but not directly to the AP from an iPad. Only the RayMarine dongle will talk directly to the AP.

The dongle changes it's codes every-time you use it - the dongle goes to sleep after a period of 5 minutes if the AP it turned off and when I wake it up is requests a new code from the Pilot that requires me to wait for the dongle to connect - then it's good for the day. The AP remote radio base station from RayMarine is just impossible to access without one of thier devices. If you use a RayMarine device like a wind sensor or a remote side scan sonar sensor it's works great, but any other brand does not seem to work nor a wifi device.

On the radar there is a plug in the back of the chartplotter, and there is another one for the chirp sonar but I think that is just a convenience plug for a portable unit because the chirp and 3d sonar works just fine over the backbone and you can view it and control it with an ipad or computer or phone.

Then yes you can add a Garmin radar. It just needs power then the network conection to the GPS. Looks like a computer network plug.

I would try to upgrade the NMEA0183 items to NMEA2000 compliant components. Yes NMEA2000 is just a can buss. Like Raymarine sea talk and Simrad. However most manufactures wonder off the NMEA2000 compliant talking on certain features.