Fess up – who has Radar yet does not know how to use it?

[Presentation]

We just got our boat last Friday. It came with Radar. A JRC RADAR1800 w/2KW closed dome and GPS.

I am trying to learn by just reading the manual and using it however I am failing and getting frustrated. OK, that is an understatement. I’m close to taking a hack saw to the darn thing.

The previous boat owner did not know how to use the Radar on the boat.

I tried calling a marine mechanic / marine electronics installer. I explained the unit is installed and as far as I know, working. He said he can install Radar and has many times but does not know how to use them himself so he can’t help me.

Thinking this was crazy I went to see a second and got the same answer.

I talked to a fellow boater at our Marina with Radar. He confided he also has it yet does not know how to use it. He said he will turn it on from time to time when guests are onboard to impress yet he had no idea what he’s doing.

So I don’t look like a total idiot, I do use GPS, and computers all the time. Rarely when they act up does it take me long to get things under control.

Who has Radar yet does not know how to use it?

Any suggestion, other then keep studying this darn stupid manual, that is terribly confusing or should I go the hack saw route?

 

[Four Suns]

So are you asking for people that don't know how to use it to help you learn how to use it? :wink:

I use mine all the time but it's a Pathfinder from Raymarine. I'm sure the concepts are the same though. What happens when you turn it on? Can you zoom out until you see a shore outline at least? It would be nice to know if you can see an outline of the shoreline using the "automatic" settings (mine are for sea clutter and gain) before I ask more questions. The system needs to be set on the radar display setting and not the chartplotter.

If you want to do an overlay of the radar image on the chartplotter, you are going to have to have a heading sensor on the NMEA bus. Do you have an autopilot or do you know if a heading sensor was installed?

 

[ImpulseIII]

I used Saturday mornings while the wife sleeps in to "play" with the new electronics until I felt comfortable with them. I would sit at the helm with a cup of coffee, the manual, and the equipment on trying the various functions and settings to seeing how they worked and what they did. If I could not figure something out, I would find someone with more experience to talk to.

As I get older, I find that I have to refresh my skills each spring because if I don't use the knowledge, it seems to evaporate over the winter months! :lol:

 

[waterlogged]

I think there are 2 parts, learning how to use it and learning how to interpret what you see.

I took a Power Squadron class and got a video (think it was from Bennet?). That pretty much covered the "learning how to use it".

The best way, IMO to learn how to interpret it, is to use it during daylight so you compare what you see to what's on the radar.

Just takes time, I don't think there's any way around it.

 

[osd9]

Practice...Practice....Practice....especially in the daytime and in areas that you are familar with. As when learning your GPS, the more you use it the more you will feel comfortable with it.

After being stuck in fog a few times, I don't know how I ever lived with out it.

Turn it on every time you leave the dock...(actually, acccording to the Rules, if you have an operational radar on board, you MUST turn it on....) and play with the settings. Identify targets on the screen and then confirm them visually. Learn the difference between a real target and ghost targets...learn how to adjust the gain, FTC, Sea clutter.

One thing to you have to accept with radar...it is NOT perfect. All things, at all times, will not show up on your screen. That is why interpretation of the screen is so important and practicing in the daytime helps you to sharpen that skill. Accepting the limitations of radar is one of the big steps in learning how to use radar.

I keep a copy of the manuals in my office to refresh every so often. I still find little things that surprise me in those manuals. After reading the book, go to the boat and practice some more (hey...it's a great reason to spend more time on the boat). Like Impulse said, at the dock or at anchor is great place to "play".

Good luck....Radar is a great tool!

 

[Presentation]

Thanks guy.

Gary, I ‘think’ the settings may be WAY off or its broken.

Yes, I can zoom, and have been doing that.

I also figured out how to change modes. I can alternate between full Radar, split 50/50 and full GPS. I can do all the things I want to do with the GPS.

When I first got my Garmin GPS, within a few hours I was doing most things. The manual made sense. Now that I am sitting at home with the JRC manual and away from the boat its obvious this manual was translated to English, and not very well. Much of the sentence structure is awkward. Word order is often reversed or sentence structure is incomplete. Things are not explained well.

Can I see the shoreline? It’s hard to see it thru all the clutter. Sunday as we were coming home I zoomed into .5 miles and as we came into a “V†area that led to a river and it was very calm I actually think what I was seeing was matching what was on the screen.

One large vessel passed. I did see a blob move past, however everything is a good 20 degrees off, like someone turned the dome 20 degrees to the right.

There were a good dozen small craft. I could not see them at all, and no way could I see a navigational buoy.

At no other point did what I see on the screen match what I was seeing with my eyes, regardless of the zoom level.

 

[waterlogged]

Have you played around with the gain? If you're seeing a lot of clutter, it could be set to high.

 

[Four Suns]

I would start by checking the Gain and Sea Clutter settings. I would bet in your manual there is a way to set them to and "auto" setting and that's where I would start. The raymarine setting has 2 different auto settings (for open water and for rain or something) and I only deviate from those when I'm fishing and need to find birds.

If your system seems to not be aligned, you really need to see if you have a heading sensor and that may need to be adjusted. Where you looking at "course up" or "north up" when you noticed that?

 

[Presentation]

Thank you for the encouragement.

Gary – the honest answer is “I don’t know†I just assumed all radar was course up.

As far as making the various adjustments, that is a big part of the issue. Trying to figure out how to find those settings and how to adjust them with such a poor manual is a big part of the problem.

I am going to assume if you have a Raymarine or similar unit where you can read the manual, then understand it.

No way could anyone do this with this JRC manual.

Imagine the first day you got your first radar. Now take away the manual. Would you be able to use it? That is where I am at.

I’m considering downloading a Raymarine or Garmin manual, reading it until I understand it then just trying to see if I can then use the JRC.

 

[marqbloq]

I am enjoying my first radar unit which came with my new 320. One of the first manuals I drank up were the Raymarine chartplotting and radar ones. Learning how to really use radar was a joy and though I am still learning, it is so cool. On our lake we have a lot of go-fast boats and I love to track and time them, clocked one at 113MPH (very cool technology). I have become very facinated by radar and love to play with the unit. Unfortunately I can't play with long distances because I am land locked and only have a few miles maximum to see out.

 

[ylwjacket]

I have found that reading the manual at home, and then trying to use the radar on the boat is almost useless. Regardless of what the book says, even a well-written one, it doesn't seem to translate in the brain at home into how to turn the knobs on the boat.

I usually wait until later at night, when everyone is downstairs watching TV, then go the helm with the manual, and adjust the settings. Things like Gary said, course vs north up, seem intuitive at home, but you can't quite the right menu for it at sea.

Also, zoom settings, understanding what you're seeing, gain, are all things to practice at home. I play with gain at sea too. I'm not real big on auto-gain, but it is easy.

On my Raymarine, I still always forget what the stupid rain setting does. It makes it so you can or can't see rain, but I always forget which it is until I actually see rain when I'm out, and toggle it back and forth.

I just got a new system in January, and I'm still learning it.

You'll get used to it, and when you do, you'll realize how remarkably useful it can be.

 

[Asureyez]

See or Not to See ... Rain

The Rain setting is a feature that alows the operator to dial back the echo sensitivity to see through rain and only return echos from solid targets. During rain storms the operator should advance or retard the rain setting until the rain just disappears but other vessels and shorelines are still lighting up.

The same concept is used in the "Sea" setting which is to reduce the echo from the tops of waves close to your boat. When you seem to be surrounded by false targets out in open water, add "Sea" adjustment to take off the tops of waves. Don't over adjust this feature because it does make the RADAR blind close to the boat.

"Gain" and "Tune" adjustments if present are used the same way, adjusting until the close solid targets are shown without whiting out the screen.

When adjusting, go slow and allow three sweeps of the antenna to give you the imagery before making more adjustments.

The trick with adjusting RADAR is to make the adjustment just to the point the desired affect takes place and no more. Adjusting each required feature minimally to get the most soild targets with the least interfearance from rain, sea, pitch or yaw.

Other cool features in many modern units is MARPA, WAKES, Enhanced Target, WAYPOINT display, WAYPOINT interface to Autopilots, Electronic bearing lines to vector targets and waypoints etc.

This past week end I had a experienced ICW boater with me on a passage to Bimini that put us in open sea for three hours with loads of week ender traffic as well as dozens of freighters and cruise liners. At times we we had 4 vessels on MARPA tracking at one time and land was no where to be seen except in our 24 mile radar sweep.

I taught him how to use RADAR and it was fantastic to watch the "Scales Fall From his Eyes" on the mysteries of electronic navigation as we made port everglades in that kick butt storm that passed over SOFla Sunday afternoon. We picked up our sea bouy racon in a white out and ran the Port Everglades jetties on instruments.

RADAR is the BOMB ... RADAR and GPS in combination are over the top tools.

 

[ylwjacket]

good info, thanks.

marpa will be next on the lsit of features to pull my hair out on.

 

[Kameroo]

A few weeks ago, some guy in a new Sea Ray visited us in our crowded marina with his radar going. I was wondering what his scope looked like with over 100 boats around him :grin:

 

[comsnark]

All I know is that if my boat had a radar arch. . .I would put a radar on that arch. And the arch retrofit seems "unappealing".

Although. . . .I am frequently out at night. Only a matter of time before I get caught in the rain in the dark. . .