radar help

[ppinson160@yahoo.com]

planing to buy a radar and need help or input on the minimum power and bandwith needed to locate birds feeding? unit will be mounted about 7 feet high. thanks in advance. Paul

[3bees]

Only from what I have read you need 4kw min. and open array. Dome will not see birds. You can go to thehulltruth.com and do a search.

[Darren]

Open or closed array has absolutely nothing to do with it other than you won;t see a closed array at anything much over 4 kw. Both have a rotating element, but you wouldn;t want to enclose a 4 foot or larger element due to the size of the dome.

For spotting birds, power is the answer. The higher the power the narrower your beam angle which leads to better target discrimination. What this means in plain english is you can filter out all the unwated junk, and be able to see all the targets you are hitting instead of just a blob, or nothing at all.

In perfect, flat seas I can hit birds on my radar without much trouble if they are pretty thick in one area out to baout 6 miles. Any kind of chop, or running and bouncing around and I will be able to see them most times before my radar returns on them, if it does at all. That;s with a closed array 4 kw Furno.

[ppinson160@yahoo.com]

thanks Darren i am planning to buy a furuno unit with a 3.5 open array antena with 4 kw and 2.2 beamwith. i am thinking this unit will do what i want. Iam i thinking right? thanks

[Darren]

I'd say it would be marginal at best but I don;t have any experience with that set up. I do know the 6 kw open array will pick up birds pretty well, but that unit is on a 30 Albie and is set up pretty high. We still have trouble when it gets a bit rough.