Re: 16 or 24 mile radar?
Gator,<br /><br />I don't really think it makes any difference to tell you the truth. If its a 2kW radar you're talking about (and those fractional ones too) the range is really moot. You're going to see what you're going to see on either of them just as well for all the good its going to do you. I have a 24 mile myself, the Raytheon (pre Ray Marine) SL-72 and I like it just fine. Furuno makes a similar unit in their 1712 and JRC makes a couple of units too. I think any of these will do you nicely. When it comes to useing one for navigation you tend to use the shorter ranges, usually less than 2 miles. The same thing goes for collision avoidance, short range is all you'd ever really use. As for storms, well, you just flip it to as far as it can see and what's going to show up has a lot more to do with elevation of the storm than its actual range. If you go to the additional expense of 4 kW then things change a bit but not so much in additional range or even much better target discrimination out at the longer ranges, at least not as a function of power output. Where the 4 kW units shine is that they use a longer antenna element (actually a patch antenna, either inside of the dome or as an open array) and the longer it is the narrower the horizontal beam width of the signal. The narrower that beamwidth the better target discrimination the unit will have. I've never thought that the improved discrimination was worth the cost myself. The way I see it your main task when navigating by radar is to avoid hitting the little black spots on the screen. It makes very little difference to me if I'm trying to miss two very small black spots or one slightly larger one. There is also the consideration of the additional dome size to the 4 kW units, with most of them being 2' across and most of the 2 kW units being a foot and a half. Of course the 4 kW units are heavier too, if that matters to you.<br /><br />Thom
