4G Broadband Radar Sail Shadow

[ColdEH]

Just about to pull the trigger on a new Broadband 4G radar and was wondering if any one had any experience with the amount of sail shadow they suffer from . IE deadzone from the jib .

I will be mounting it halfway up the mast .

Regards

[a64pilot]

Mine is on a pole at the stern, and I haven't noticed any blanking from either sail, although I haven't specifically looked for that, but will now.


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[NahanniV]

Originally Posted by typhoon

Just about to pull the trigger on a new Broadband 4G radar and was wondering if any one had any experience with the amount of sail shadow they suffer from . IE deadzone from the jib .

I will be mounting it halfway up the mast .

Regards

I have mine 25' off the water on my mizzen (about 35' back from the bow).

I have not noticed any "deadzone" from the sails.

I do get a very small return from something at my own bow, possibly the furler, pulpit, or anchor.

Cheers,
JM.

[ColdEH]

I can understand not being able to see aft, because of the mast , i was curious if I would get a return from the jib and not whats on the other side of it . That would be a little disconcerting thinking that I was only covering half of whats in front of me .

Sounds like it is not a problem .

Regards

[DDabs]

I'm mounted mid-mast, no problems whatsoever.

[garrobito]

..would suggest take a second look at a furuno type.. Simrad 4G radar have some issues when scan far away... Also, I read screen show some discrepancy when MARPA function is working... I installed a new halo radar and work very well...
Check review again just in case...

[Nicholson58]

We have ours on the mizzen. We see the main mast which is 7" X 12" section. Sails are not an issue. We see seagulls up to 100 yards out.

[Emouchet]

I beleive most 4G radar have a minimum range of 20 meters.

I understand that anything within 20 meters from the antenna is not detected or filtered out.

Is this a wrong interpretation?

[ColdEH]

Originally Posted by Emouchet

I beleive most 4G radar have a minimum range of 20 meters.

I understand that anything within 20 meters from the antenna is not detected or filtered out.

Is this a wrong interpretation?

Thats a good question , I understand Dockhead can see his own bow, he has his raydom half way up his mast, that must be less then 20 meters .

Getting a little excited in this technology , been watch youtube vids . Has any one seen the one with the floating tire ?

I will be using this radar for manly night sailing , my old furuno 1712 was ok but you really got to know what you are looking at . Im not really worried about long distance reception if I get 10 miles Im happy , and if I can see a floating tire at night and not run into it, I'm really happy !!!

Regards

[Pyxis156]

Originally Posted by Emouchet

I beleive most 4G radar have a minimum range of 20 meters.

I understand that anything within 20 meters from the antenna is not detected or filtered out.

Is this a wrong interpretation?

We have a 54' boat with a B&G 4G mounted at the stern about 10' above the waterline and when zoomed in can see the return of the bow of our boat, so I think the 20m filtering is a myth.

[Neptune's Gear]

Yep, its a myth. An range is MUCH more than 10 miles - 30 + quite well in most installs.

[NahanniV]

Originally Posted by Neptune's Gear

Yep, its a myth. An range is MUCH more than 10 miles - 30 + quite well in most installs.

30 miles ? How high is your scanner ? And how tall/big are the targets you are seeing at that distance ?

I have my 4G at about 25' off the water and don't get anywhere near that distance ?

[a64pilot]

Normal pulsed RADAR has a sort of gate that opens and closes when a pulse is sent I believe, if it's listening when it pulses I believe it's deaf for an instant. similar to us looking at a strobe if it fires, so therefore there is a minimum range, I believe.
But a continuous wave RADAR is "listening", well continuously, so it may in fact not have a min range?

Range of a RADAR is variable of course depending on many factors, meaning of course it all depends, mounting height is only one variable and may not be as important as we think, just one that we can control.
But for instance, my 4G will see Thunderstorm cells out to it's max range, of course they are huge, and dense, with 0 backclutter and since they are so high, my RADAR height is irrelevant. But can I see a fiberglass sailboat more than a couple of miles in a heavy sea state? Probably not.

Maybe it's just me, but from what I can tell my 4G is not all that much better them my Garmin HD was, it is not in my opinion a game changer, but I am intrigued more than a little bit of it's supposed extremely low RF emissions, it's supposed lower than a cell phone?

[Nicholson58]

I really like our broadband. Its an older version but works well. As I noted above, we see gulls flying past. I wondered what these 'anomalies' were until the fog broke and we could see them. I would buy another broadband if anything happened to this one.

[ColdEH]

Do you all find the technology as good as they say . ?

This guy found a tire floating in a rough foggy night .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwCvkdkNZ28

Night sailing would be my main use for a good radar , collision avoidance , lots of fisherman up here with few lights and no AIS . I really hate running into things

Regards