# Things I hate about modern radars



## Uricanejack (Jul 22, 2012)

John Cassel asked if you modern guys still use the chino graph pencil nowadays.

Sadly no. I’m not often accused of being modern, the usual adjectives are dinosaur, technophobe, luddite, old fashioned. At least those are the polite adjectives.

I do still have a box of chino graph pencils in the chart table drawer. I can’t use them with the new radars. In today’s modern world, cheep is the overriding economic priority. Electronics are cheep. Reflection plotters were precision optical instruments and I have not seen one on a radar in at least 15 years. I do not think there are any major manufacturers still making radars with reflection plotters.

I expect plotting sheets and the use of the is still taught during IMO STCW 95 approved radar courses. I think you can even print them of from our computers. 

I don’t miss the old hoods. The daylight screen I can see from several feet away is great. I do miss my reflection plotter. 

I also miss the old radars. I particularly remember the Decas with the different shaped knobs up each side so you could feel which of the control functions you were adjusting. Now I have to use a roller mouse ball thingy and several bloody menus to get a simple adjustment.

I have a particular dislike of the Decca Bridge Master. However anything made by SAM makes the Bridge Master seam absolutely wonderful. 

The modern radar has a fully electronic display. it’s a LED or LEC screen just like a computer. The whole picture has been processed by the chips inside and is presented on the screen. The apparent sweep is an electronically produced fake to give the placebo of a real time picture in sync with the scanner.

The brilliance is just screen brightness day or night.
The Gain, Tunning, Sea Clutter and Rain Clutter. Are set by digital increments. Unfortunately this means they are stepped rather than in a line like the analogue valves and tubes. 
The result is ether to little or to much never just right. The better radars have more steps than the cheaper models so they get better settings.
Some have a variety of specific propriety manufacturers auto settings and computerised enhancement and clear screen settings which will give you a lovely clear black or color of your choice screen. Unfortunately if you are close to land they will automatically wipe out Islands.
.
Well bottom line I miss my pencil, reflection plotter and a radar which picks up small vessels or targets on rainy days.


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## oldseamerchant (Sep 8, 2012)

Uricanejack said:


> John Cassel asked if you modern guys still use the chino graph pencil nowadays.
> 
> Sadly no. I’m not often accused of being modern, the usual adjectives are dinosaur, technophobe, luddite, old fashioned. At least those are the polite adjectives.
> 
> ...


The site is called Ships Nostalgia and by the vintage of most on the site I would agree with John Cassel and consider you modern (1980). What is wrong with that?


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## Uricanejack (Jul 22, 2012)

Thanks. Its nice to still be considered moderen. Its all relative.


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## Klaatu83 (Jan 22, 2009)

At the radar school I used to attend, we were required to be checked out on the operation of three different ARPAs. They included models made by Sperry, Raytheon and one other manufacturer, the name of which I can't recall offhand, but which I never encountered on shipboard anyway. Of the three, the Raytheon was the easiest and most intuitive to operate, mainly because it's controls most closely resembled the controls found on the existing radar sets that most of us were already used to. The third make, the name of which I can no longer recall, was very difficult to operate because it had a separate button for each function, which meant that it had more buttons than the control console at the NASA Space Center. Fortunately, I never encountered one of those the bridge of any of the ships I was on. The Sperry had an ultra-modern "touch-screen" display, with numerous menus and sub-menus. It took some getting used to, but it wasn't all that difficult once you got the hang of it. However, the system had a built-in flaw, in that the "touch-screen" soon acquired a film of dirt from the fingers of the operators, so that one never knew if touching it was going to elicit a response or not. It was necessary to keep a bottle of window-cleaner handy, along with a cleaning rag, and to clean the screen regularly.

We were under the impression that the people at Raytheon designed their system based, at least in part, upon input from people who had actually operated radar sets in the real world, while the other two models must have been designed by computer geeks who never left their air-conditioned, florescent-lit, computer-filled electronics laboratories.


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## Olosun (Apr 21, 2012)

*Noicy*

I like the new modern radars where the monitor, keyboard and computer not are stuck together. This means that the parts that are noisy can be placed in a separate room with cable or fiber to convey the information to the screen.
Keyboard with trackball can be placed handy at the chair and can be individually adjusted.
It's important to have this information when it is installed otherwise all parts will end up together so the result is like an RCA radar from the late 50's.

I don't like the touch screens on a radar. Having the screen filled up with marmalade stains.(Cloud)


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## vasco (Dec 27, 2007)

If I remember right the plotters were designed to avoid errors from the curvature of the tube (parralax?).
These days the screen is flat and chinographs can be used! at least I found no great inaccuracies when I had to use it on a non-plotting bridge master.
I would not use it on a touch screen though, the wax skids on the marmalade.


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## Chris Field (Apr 3, 2005)

I recently noticed whilst sailing in the Waitemata Harbour in Auckland that a gigantic cruise liner (?Dawn Princess?) had a radar scanner a few feet above sea level on her stern. WHY?


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## vasco (Dec 27, 2007)

Probably a blind. Spot from the bridge or a pirate boat spotter


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## Varley (Oct 1, 2006)

Chris Field said:


> I recently noticed whilst sailing in the Waitemata Harbour in Auckland that a gigantic cruise liner (?Dawn Princess?) had a radar scanner a few feet above sea level on her stern. WHY?


Perhaps for docking. A counterintuitive feature of radar is that the lower the scanner the less sea clutter. I put a cheapo cheapo yacht radar at deck level to better detect the towed array marker buoy.

These days, with seafarers left for 'market forces' to counter piracy it might well be a security measure as well. Well placed. Small boats better detected in wake and chop with high frequency and low down aerial - in either case better oscillating rather than rotating.


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