radar

[sailaway21]

I for one was a bit surprised that halekai has decided on the Garmin over the Furuno. Is the cost difference that significant? Wouldn't surprise me. My two cents says that reliability trumps ALL other virtues. You can have all the bells abnd whistles you want, with displays here, there, and everywhere. The bottom line is that, when you're out dodging ore boats in the fog, what will be most important is that the unit works and doesn't go down.

[xort]

Cam
It's more than $150 from what I can determine...and that's one of the things I'm trying to determine.
These systems use chips of rather small regions. The West guy was showing me that each of the great lakes is one chip. Then you have many chips for the east coast. Our plans are for long range cruising so we'd, in theory, need a lot of chips. This is only what i've learned so far. I think the manufacturers like to keep you in the dark. Plus there's a lot to learn and not all sales people are up to speed. I was dealing with the store manager that I was told was the electronics expert of the store. That's not necessarily saying much!

Does anyone have the info on loading your own charts into any of these systems?

[Mikelivingstone]

Hello stillraining, I agree that the best place for the radar is at the helm, I trasfered my radar and chartplotter to the helm yesterday, however the chartplotter is going bananas whenever I take the radar off standby. Is there a way to fix that since I see that you have them fixed alongside each other as well?

[halekai36]

Originally Posted by sailaway21

I for one was a bit surprised that halekai has decided on the Garmin over the Furuno. Is the cost difference that significant? Wouldn't surprise me. My two cents says that reliability trumps ALL other virtues. You can have all the bells abnd whistles you want, with displays here, there, and everywhere. The bottom line is that, when you're out dodging ore boats in the fog, what will be most important is that the unit works and doesn't go down.

Sway..

if you read my post you'd have seen how reliable my Garmin stuff has been. One of the other things driving Garmin for me is that they are not jsut in the marine market and therefore seem to push the technology envelope. My buddy owns a plane and he uses Garmin. I don't know to many folks that fly planes and depend on Furuno and Raymarine?

Yes my Furuno stuff was bullet proof but so is my Garmin gear plus they go above and beyond with customer service. When I started to understand, through talking with my buddy, that Garmin has a huge presence in the aviation industry, where faulty equipment is has zero acceptance, I began looking more closely at it.

Plus the Garmin is the best radar imaging I've yet to see on a an 18" dome and that includes both Furuno and Raymarine when I say that. WHile I've not spent a ton of time with it I do have about ten straight hours of use on OPB's with the Garmin non HD domes (last years domes) and have been very, very impressed. Actually, ten hours of radar use is more than most folks see in an entire season..? Perhaps the new Furuno stuff is as good as the Garmin and that's why I said I'm still 70/30%. A friend with a new Furuno system on his 33 foot Grady White is going to let me play with it when it gets commissioned so I can get some "real world" on both before buying..

[sailingdog]

Mike-

Before relocating complex electronics, you really should do a dry run, to see if there are any unforeseen complications like that. Most likely, the wiring from the radar, going to the radome, is causing interference in one of the chart plotter lines. Have you tried putting ferrite cores on the wiring to reduce the electronic noise?

[sailingdog]

Halekai's point about Garmin and the aviation field is a good one. Also, Garmin appears to be expanding their presence in the marine field. Recently, they've introduced instruments for boats. Add that to their dominant position with respect to GPS, and their existing line of pretty decent radar units, I see them becoming a serious contender in the industry soon. Also, they have some of the best non-governmental cartography from what I've seen.

[Mikelivingstone]

thanks sailingdog will try it out, do I fix to radar cable of GPS cable?

[sailingdog]

Put the ferrites on both cables. As close to the instruments as you can and also as close to the antennas as you can.

Originally Posted by Mikelivingstone

thanks sailingdog will try it out, do I fix to radar cable of GPS cable?

[sailaway21]

Originally Posted by halekai36

Sway..

if you read my post you'd have seen how reliable my Garmin stuff has been. One of the other things driving Garmin for me is that they are not jsut in the marine market and therefore seem to push the technology envelope. My buddy owns a plane and he uses Garmin. I don't know to many folks that fly planes and depend on Furuno and Raymarine?

Yes my Furuno stuff was bullet proof but so is my Garmin gear plus they go above and beyond with customer service. When I started to understand, through talking with my buddy, that Garmin has a huge presence in the aviation industry, where faulty equipment is has zero acceptance, I began looking more closely at it.

Plus the Garmin is the best radar imaging I've yet to see on a an 18" dome and that includes both Furuno and Raymarine when I say that. WHile I've not spent a ton of time with it I do have about ten straight hours of use on OPB's with the Garmin non HD domes (last years domes) and have been very, very impressed. Actually, ten hours of radar use is more than most folks see in an entire season..? Perhaps the new Furuno stuff is as good as the Garmin and that's why I said I'm still 70/30%. A friend with a new Furuno system on his 33 foot Grady White is going to let me play with it when it gets commissioned so I can get some "real world" on both before buying..

I read your post and thought perhaps that something had changed perhaps with Furuno. Thanks for the further explanation. I'm always a bit leary of company's new products in fields where they've no expertise, thus my questioning of the Garmin over the Furuno. Not that any marine electronics manufacturer would ever bring a product to market with known bugs in it. (g)

[JiffyLube]

One day out sailing in beautiful weather, I had a chance to notice something unusual with the radar overlay on my Garmin 3210 plotter using the 4 kw Garmin radome.

I had the plotter on at the time, and while sailing a Navy sub passed by us about 1/2 mile away as it was leaving San Diego. I decided to see what the sub target would look like on radar, so I started up the radar. The target was big, and you could really see it moving across the plotter screen. Then I decided to put the radar on overlay, and I could barely see any sign that the sub was even there! I switched back to radar only, and there it was again as big as ever. Switched back to overlay, and could hardly see a target.

I emailed Garmin support about this, and they couldn't give me any reason for this happening. I keep the software updated, so I know it's not a case of updating. I've never noticed that situation before, as I've assumed that everything I saw on overlay was what was out there...at least it appeared that way on some night runs we've made. One idea that Garmin offered to me, was that the plotter screen might be to light to see the target (which is yellow). They think the reason I see the target in the radar only mode, is because the back ground is black...that could be. I have not tried to darken the plotter screen yet to test that idea, but I will next chance I get.