Radar question???

[Barry Pugh]

I just purchased a new chartplotter / radar unit. I need to purchase a radar dome. I would like to use it to look for birds as well. Will a 1.5 foot unit work or do I need a 2 foot dome to see birds? Thanks for any input.

[Rick Waddle]

I have the Garmin GMR 18 hooked to my 4212. The thing can barely find land when I am in the middle of the river, I can't imagine it would see birds that weren't already in site of the boat.

[TerpHeels]

go at least 4kw open array for birds

[rocksandblues]

ditto what terp said

[Cap't Steve]

If buying Raytheon, a 4Kw dome will find birds at three miles. The little 1.6 kw Apelco I have on the new boat won't find channel markers.

[Rick Waddle]

sounds like Apleco and Garmin share the same radar R&D department.....

[Kayak fisherman]

I got a brand new Lowrance 4KW radome with an LCX-28HD chartplotter/display and mounted it on boat myself.

Do I like it? Yes!!!!
Would I buy one again? I don't know.

Does it work well? Yes.
It sees land, other boats, and even small structures (sticking just a few feet out of the water) very well. I can ride down the Poquoson River and it sees all the unmarked poles/stakes sticking up.

I installed it exactly as the instructions said to. They left out two key "steps". First one was that they sent me the chartplotter with out-of-date software. Interestingly, they included an SD card to update the chartplotter, but the software on the SD card was more out of date than the software on the chartplotter. They emailed me the update and it works fine.

Also, they fail to tell you in the manual that the radar will not power up unless the engine is running and the radar 'senses" 13.3 volts (they told me this was common knowledge). After that, it works ok. This was frustrating because the system requires four power lines (one to the chartplotter, one to the radar motor, one to the magnetron [that requires 13.3V] and one to the mysterious RIM Modules that is actually built into one of the other pieces of wiring).

Lowrance has GREAT Tech Support. They are knowledgable, but the manual sucks ass.

[Kayak fisherman]

I didn't bother tilting it 4 degrees forward (I can later). It seems to work just fine the way it is.

It DOES work for structure, but I have never seen birds with it that I couldn't spot with the naked eye. I've never seen bad weather with it (I've never been out in T-storms since I bought it). It DOES work in the fog. It easily got me out of Back River to the CBBT in complete darkness/fog.

I'm trying to attach a photo but I have already exceeding my attachment quota.

[Coastal Unlimited]

4kw open aarray is the minimum I would use to try to find birds, anything less you can see with your eye. A radar works off of line of sight so the higher you get it on the boat the better it will pick things up further away. People put these 64 nm radars on there 25ft Grady and cant figure out why it wont pick up anything over 12nm, its just not high enough to pick up that far over the contour of the earth's surface. on smaller boats with smaller radars I recomend useing a radar pedistal instead of just mounting it to the hard top. You can buy these in different places such as west marine\boat us or you could have one custom made at your local marine fabrication shop. Be careful of height on your pedistal if you trailer your boat not to be over the "limit". If that is an issue, I have also seen pedistals that fold down for trailering. I hope this is a help.

[rocksandblues]

I didn't bother tilting it 4 degrees forward (I can later). It seems to work just fine the way it is.

It DOES work for structure, but I have never seen birds with it that I couldn't spot with the naked eye. I've never seen bad weather with it (I've never been out in T-storms since I bought it). It DOES work in the fog. It easily got me out of Back River to the CBBT in complete darkness/fog.

I'm trying to attach a photo but I have already exceeding my attachment quota.

if you cant see t-storms it is not adj correctly. one of the best things anyone with radar can do is spend time on a nice day drifting along and adj the settings. factory settings suck and will pick up land and boats. they all have very powerful features but you need to spend time setting them up.

i can pick up crab pots.

at 48 miles it is spotty out on the ocean and in big swells contacts blip out/in. but it is enough to shadow charter boats and extrapolate where they are headed. anything over 20 miles in the bay is worthless. screen looks like you are in a creek and all you see is landmass.