Struggling with radar 2

[Monterey10]

Next, I went to the harbor entrance, which was pretty busy. To the left was a small cliff and to the right was the harbor entrance.

I was disapointed in the results. I could see some targets moving on the water, but most of the boats coming and going to the harbor were not visible. I spent quite a bit of time working with the gain and range w/o success. I'm wondering if large beach area interfered with the radar set's ability to see the boats.(?)

OK, it's back to the books. On the good side, I was about 50% better at using the radar's controls. My interpretation was a little better. On the bad side, many of the targets were not visible. This is a 2.2 KW Furuno. It seems to pick up the land masses, piers and such. This set seems to pick up the smaller targets on close range better.

 

[mdoherty]

Your results seem pretty typical for a small array. Hope you understand that operating a radar on land requires a license and operating it without a license is illegal. The beach scene with people in the near field beam is particularily troubling.

 

[sixnt]

It looks to me like you kept the range at 1/4 mile when you moved to the beach. If so, your display makes sense to me. Radar, of course, picks up metal, not boats in particular. So your close range display shows people's aluminum frame chairs, ice chests, etc. It may even show interference from your truck's hood and the sand on the beach. in the upper right hand corner, it shows a real good return from one of the channel markers at the harbor entrance and/or the breakwater. If there are any small boats in the entrance channel, they may be masked by the return from the breakwater. The sailboat which appears straight ahead in the photo may be beyond the 1/4 mile range and/or may not have enough metal in or on it to show on your radar. This is my cent's worth, anyway...