Weather/Radar systems

[Caolan]

I am interested in the future in getting a weather/radar system for offshore usage and I am new to the whole thing. What is a good basic system, and what components are needed for it?

Thanks!
Caolan.

[a64pilot]

Buy a plotter / Radar combo of your choice.
I assume by weather system you mean a Radar that can see rain?

[Caolan]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

Buy a plotter / Radar combo of your choice.
I assume by weather system you mean a Radar that can see rain?

Rain, wind, high/low pressure systems, etc ...

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by Caolan

Rain, wind, high/low pressure systems, etc ...

Rain, yes... any typical small radar (Furuno, Ray Marine, GArmin, etc) will see rain.

Wind and barometric pressures are not observable directly by radar.

Jim

[barnakiel]

I have always used radar for early showers warning until ... quite recently had a new gen (HD or something) B&G-Simrad unit on a boat.

Uhmmmmm .... I played and played with the options ... while squalls were coming and coming ... and they were not visible.

But an older LCD Furuno (1623?) showed everything ...

So my 1 cent of input is: check how the kind you buy actually reflects from rain and drizzle BEFORE you buy it. Imho some new types hardly do.

Cheers,
b.

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by Caolan

Rain, wind, high/low pressure systems, etc ...

I think you may be confusing the "weather RADAR" you see on the evening news with a ships RADAR. They are two different things.

RADAR cannot "see" wind or barometric pressure. It can only "see" something that will reflect an RF signal. The metal side of a big ship will do that, land, physical structures, other boats, waves, etc. As such, the only weather phenomena you can commonly see on convetion RADAR is the rain in a squall or low level clouds with lots of moisture in them.

The "weather RADAR" images you see are often a composite image made up of several sources. Part if which may be doppler RADAR data.

You can however, receive weather data from other sources while aboard a boat.

[Adelie]

Don't get a spread spectrum system, won't see the precipitation.