Tugcapitan
Well-Known Member
Thought I'd start a new thread, we were talking about showing up on Radar in another one
Quote Originally Posted by Tugcapitan View Post
A radar reflector is never inappropriate. Obviously fog and low/no light conditions are where they come into their own, but you might be surprised how quickly small boats "disappear" in the glaring sun as well. In the unlikely event () another vessel may not be paying close attention but do have their radar proximity alarms on, a reflector may help avoid a close quarters situation.
Although it doesn't improve the look of your small boat, it's a pretty cheap way to make sure your seen around our busy waterways.
Apologies for the thread hi-jack...........TugCapitan, what is your experience with radar reflection of glass boat with hard tops on Aluminum frames? Decent bounce back or nearly invisible? I ask because I have one of those sh*tty tube radar reflectors, but it is weathered cracked and broken and quite honestly I am not sure it adds much more than the 1 1/2 aluminum tubing on my hard top. Just curious if you can see boats like mine. On my Furuno radar I seem to be able to pick them up quite well and when I get near them I confirm they have no reflectors on top. Just thought I would ask for an expert opinion ;-)
On nice days, most average size fishing boats show up well on our radars, reflectors or not. Sometimes I can clearly see floating logs and flying birds. But it's kind of a subjective question because as conditions change, so does your radar signature. The choppier it gets, the more vessels using radar will start to increase their sea clutter filtering, which also makes small targets in close proximity harder to see, but it prevents the chop itself from clogging up the origin area of the screen. It's a balancing act that depends on the experience or skill of the operator and the quality of the unit. Now add some rain, and the rain clutter gets turned up which makes vessels farther away harder to see, but prevents rain clouds and squalls from cluttering up the whole screen. Now if one adjusts the gain controls to optimize the "big picture", you have a very delicate operation going on. I'm lucky enough to work for a company that invests in good quality equipment, but there are some old and tired radars out there that won't tune very well no matter how good you are. We also have older ships visiting our waters from around the world whose equipment may not meet the standards one might expect. The pilots will tune the radars available to them as best as they can, but again, may be limited by the equipment itself.
Now factor in the amount of vertical area on your boat to reflect a radar beam. If your boat is sleek and sporty, and now rolling around in the chop and rain, your chances of reflecting a good signature are getting poorer. I like to think I pay close attention to what's going on out here, and I'd be lying if I said I haven't been surprised by small boats suddenly "coming out of nowhere".
The aluminum boats like kingfishers and silver streaks with that water taxi gone pleasure boat looking design seem to show up very well due to the near vertical cabin designs. Other boats that you see from head on quite well reflecting their windscreens or what have you, might not show up well at all when they turn and you're trying to get a signal from their quarter or stern.
Lots of variables to factor in on any given day.
I think I read on the forum somewhere a comparison between the signature of those tubular vrs traditional radar reflectors, I would defer to that as I have no experience testing one over the other. I would assume the traditional diamond shaped one would win by a good margin.
Quote Originally Posted by Tugcapitan View Post
A radar reflector is never inappropriate. Obviously fog and low/no light conditions are where they come into their own, but you might be surprised how quickly small boats "disappear" in the glaring sun as well. In the unlikely event () another vessel may not be paying close attention but do have their radar proximity alarms on, a reflector may help avoid a close quarters situation.
Although it doesn't improve the look of your small boat, it's a pretty cheap way to make sure your seen around our busy waterways.
Apologies for the thread hi-jack...........TugCapitan, what is your experience with radar reflection of glass boat with hard tops on Aluminum frames? Decent bounce back or nearly invisible? I ask because I have one of those sh*tty tube radar reflectors, but it is weathered cracked and broken and quite honestly I am not sure it adds much more than the 1 1/2 aluminum tubing on my hard top. Just curious if you can see boats like mine. On my Furuno radar I seem to be able to pick them up quite well and when I get near them I confirm they have no reflectors on top. Just thought I would ask for an expert opinion ;-)
On nice days, most average size fishing boats show up well on our radars, reflectors or not. Sometimes I can clearly see floating logs and flying birds. But it's kind of a subjective question because as conditions change, so does your radar signature. The choppier it gets, the more vessels using radar will start to increase their sea clutter filtering, which also makes small targets in close proximity harder to see, but it prevents the chop itself from clogging up the origin area of the screen. It's a balancing act that depends on the experience or skill of the operator and the quality of the unit. Now add some rain, and the rain clutter gets turned up which makes vessels farther away harder to see, but prevents rain clouds and squalls from cluttering up the whole screen. Now if one adjusts the gain controls to optimize the "big picture", you have a very delicate operation going on. I'm lucky enough to work for a company that invests in good quality equipment, but there are some old and tired radars out there that won't tune very well no matter how good you are. We also have older ships visiting our waters from around the world whose equipment may not meet the standards one might expect. The pilots will tune the radars available to them as best as they can, but again, may be limited by the equipment itself.
Now factor in the amount of vertical area on your boat to reflect a radar beam. If your boat is sleek and sporty, and now rolling around in the chop and rain, your chances of reflecting a good signature are getting poorer. I like to think I pay close attention to what's going on out here, and I'd be lying if I said I haven't been surprised by small boats suddenly "coming out of nowhere".
The aluminum boats like kingfishers and silver streaks with that water taxi gone pleasure boat looking design seem to show up very well due to the near vertical cabin designs. Other boats that you see from head on quite well reflecting their windscreens or what have you, might not show up well at all when they turn and you're trying to get a signal from their quarter or stern.
Lots of variables to factor in on any given day.
I think I read on the forum somewhere a comparison between the signature of those tubular vrs traditional radar reflectors, I would defer to that as I have no experience testing one over the other. I would assume the traditional diamond shaped one would win by a good margin.
