RADAR on a laptop?

[Christian Van H]

Hi all! Anyone have any experience using a laptop to view and monitor RADAR?
Do any manufacturers make a PC only scanner? Thanks, Chris

[dacust]

Originally Posted by Christian Van H

Hi all! Anyone have any experience using a laptop to view and monitor RADAR?
Do any manufacturers make a PC only scanner? Thanks, Chris

Only one I am aware of is Nobeltec. Expensive. Not only do you need over $1,000 worth of software, but their radars are expensive, too.

Radars are here.

But they do make a Black Box that can interface older radars.

Disclaimer: I like Nobeltec products, but I don't like the decisions they make. They have a habit of obsoleting products and trying to force you to pay for a new upgrade. They talked me into upgrading to get ENC support. Then a few months later, discontinued support.

-dan

[Cadence10m]

Rose Point claims to have radar support too.
Rose Point Navigation Systems

I looked at them last year. It looked like they private labelled the Navionics radar. The radar unit has an ethernet output that goes straight to the computer. Very cool.

The software in about $400. It looks quite good.

I'm not certain that the software ACTUALLY supports radar at the moment. Thw ebsite seems a bit ambiguous on that point.

Craig

[Hampus]

KODEN RADARpc with P-Sea Software

[Zephyr's Aura]

Sea clear II has radar input and it's free. Works on any PC

[mario f]

Do these work with any radar or do you need a spacific unit?
As to SeaClear how would you connect to laptop??

[witzgall]

What hardware is required to get this working?

Originally Posted by Zephyr's Aura

Sea clear II has radar input and it's free. Works on any PC

[Christian Van H]

Hardware seems to be the problem here... You would think someone would make a blackbox USB radar, just like the current AIS and sounder offerings. Alot of boats use laptops as their primary chart plotters...
Oh, and it should be cheaper, not twice as expensive!

[Rick]

I delivered a large yacht that had two computers with chartplotting, etc. as well as radar and a REAL chartplotter. The computers crashed from time to time in addition to having to "shut down due to an illegal operation".

For years no one in industry would use a windows based operating system to perform tasks which needed to be reliable. That is why modern radar (and other) manufacturers use deterministic software which is not windows based.

Not once has any radar or dedicated chartplotter that I have used failed to function due to the built in firmware glitching or crashing. Think about that before trying to save a few bucks by not buying a REAL radar.

[Strygaldwir]

Raytech by Raymarine allows you to connect you pc into your Seatalk bus and connect to your radar. Very slick, but expensive.