New radar
- Thread starter bharney
- Start date
jose santin
Member
I am partial to Garmin. But a lot depends on the rest of the electronics, Ray Marine is not compatible with the industry standard NMea2000 so an expensive converter is necessary.
Warren Holybee
Active Member
No radar is compatible with NMEA2000. NMEA2000 is not fast enough for the radar display. So, whatever radar you get, will need to be the same brand as your display and it will use that brands proprietary connection. AFAIK, there is no converter available to use one brand of radar on another brand display.
For anything else other than radar, any current Raymarine product DOES support NMEA2000 without any converter. You only need to change the connector on the wire.
Regarding beamwidth, I would not make that a primary consideration. In theory, a narrower beamwidth will provide a higher resolution and better accuracy. A narrow beamwidth might also cause the radar to not work as well while healed over. So, give and take, and probably not a whole lot in either case.
Most of my boat now is Raymarine, but I would not recommend it. I am looking at B&G.
For anything else other than radar, any current Raymarine product DOES support NMEA2000 without any converter. You only need to change the connector on the wire.
Regarding beamwidth, I would not make that a primary consideration. In theory, a narrower beamwidth will provide a higher resolution and better accuracy. A narrow beamwidth might also cause the radar to not work as well while healed over. So, give and take, and probably not a whole lot in either case.
Most of my boat now is Raymarine, but I would not recommend it. I am looking at B&G.
terry_thatcher
Terence Thatcher
Attainable Adventure Cruising very strongly recommends Furuno. Check out John Harries' thoughts at the website. I may replace my 30 year old Raytheon with a Furuno 1815, simply because I don't want to pay the price for the highly rated 1835.
Warren Holybee
Active Member
I know that Furuno users are often zealous about how good they are. I would like to see some impartial side by side comparison. Unfortunately, the reviews I have seen are just a review, not a side by side.
Here is a side by side of Garmin, Raymarine, and Simrad(B&G)
tldr; This reviewer felt the Halo was better in most situations. The Garmin was best offshore, but was the worst in crowded areas. But the author also felt all 3 were perfectly fine overall.
Here is a side by side of Garmin, Raymarine, and Simrad(B&G)
Enclosed radars compared, including Garmin, Raymarine, and Simrad
I often shy away from recommending one manufacturer's products over another. I feel the comparison is usually highly subjective and what works for me may not work for others. But, an on-the-water comparison of Garmin, Raymarine, and Simrad's current radar units allows all of us to see the...
panbo.com
tldr; This reviewer felt the Halo was better in most situations. The Garmin was best offshore, but was the worst in crowded areas. But the author also felt all 3 were perfectly fine overall.
terry_thatcher
Terence Thatcher
Thanks for the citation.
terry_thatcher
Terence Thatcher
Fascinating. If I am going to buy something new, I am not sure I want a radar that can miss a bridge or a causeway. My 30 year old Raytheon does better than that. But I will read the report more carefully later.
struell
Stephen Ruell
The original question was about a Garmin radar and chart plotter. I think that combination mentioned would be great, though I have the older generation myself. The combination of a chart plotter with the radar image as an overlay seems vital to me. So that test report in Panbo of radar units in standalone mode, is a usage mode I would never use close to shore in coastal Maine in the fog. I have had a stand-alone Furuno 1990's monochrome unit for radar and could use it but it is very difficult to get a good picture. You had to know what you were looking for and then you could probably see it, but it had a lot of guessing and uncertainty. I am not a professional mariner with radar training so I need the simplicity of a system like the newer Garmin I have now, and would never go back to a standalone radar image like he shows in the Panbo article.
We now have a Garmin 24xHD sending to a Garmin 8xvs chart plotter, and for the radar function I always use it as the chart with the radar overlaid on it. The chart and the radar together give you much more of a picture. In clear weather you can practice and watch the overlaid images and build trust with what you are seeing, shorelines and rocks, buoys, etc. You can also tweak the antenna angle so that the radar image fits nicely over the chart image, on the go calibration. We also have a B&G VHF with AIS receiver and it ties into the Garmin through NMEA 2000 and displays vessels with AIS on the screen with the radar. I would recommend that be part of your system. You also need the heading sensor with the Garmin system. With NMEA 2000 it really is plug and play,
If you already have a newish chart plotter I think you could buy the radar that goes with your chart plotter or if buying new you buy radar and plotter as a set. I may be wrong and it may be differnt on the open ocean but there doesn't seem to me to be a role for a standalone screen for showing just the radar image, unless you have more room at the helm than a Morgan 382 has. Also don't believe you should have the radar down below in the cabin. For coastal work it needs to be up with the helmsman.
Steve
We now have a Garmin 24xHD sending to a Garmin 8xvs chart plotter, and for the radar function I always use it as the chart with the radar overlaid on it. The chart and the radar together give you much more of a picture. In clear weather you can practice and watch the overlaid images and build trust with what you are seeing, shorelines and rocks, buoys, etc. You can also tweak the antenna angle so that the radar image fits nicely over the chart image, on the go calibration. We also have a B&G VHF with AIS receiver and it ties into the Garmin through NMEA 2000 and displays vessels with AIS on the screen with the radar. I would recommend that be part of your system. You also need the heading sensor with the Garmin system. With NMEA 2000 it really is plug and play,
If you already have a newish chart plotter I think you could buy the radar that goes with your chart plotter or if buying new you buy radar and plotter as a set. I may be wrong and it may be differnt on the open ocean but there doesn't seem to me to be a role for a standalone screen for showing just the radar image, unless you have more room at the helm than a Morgan 382 has. Also don't believe you should have the radar down below in the cabin. For coastal work it needs to be up with the helmsman.
Steve
jimcleary
James M. Cleary
Years ago when we wanted to install a new electronics package on board Dana, the best choices were Garmin for chart plotters and Furuno for radar. My electronics guru asked me which will I use the most? Of course the chart plotter will be mostly used all the time. So his answer to me was to get the Garmin plotter and radar package. While the Furuno radar had a better reputation, the Garmin is by far the plotter. Over these years he was proven rather correct in his advice. For user friendliness and ease of handling, the Garmin is lightyears ahead of anything Raymarine.
Jim
Jim
david_buckley
David Buckley
I have used a raymarine c70. I have kept it going by buying the display units on ebay. I just bought a newer used unit and it would not see the radar. On our recent crusz we had to use the old barely functioning control head when we anticipated needing the radar. I love the overlay feature but going forward I am looking for a stand alone radar so that losing the control head does not kill both tools. I may skip the fixed GPS next time and do a tablet, separate radar and handheld back up.