Aerials & Electronics
- Thread starter rherten
- Start date
The friendliest place on the web for anyone who enjoys boating.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
jgwinks
Guru
That's REflector, not DEflector. Probably just a typo or autocorrect. Anyway, plastics in general including fiberglass are pretty much invisible to radar. The dome on your radar is plastic and it doesn't impair the signal at all, or they wouldn't have used it. When you see a fiberglass boat on radar your'e actually seeing the return from large metal bits and the people in the boat. Bodies do give a pretty good return. The metal bits like the engine being close to or below waterline don't give much return at all from longer distances. A reflector mounted up high will make your boat appear on other ship's radars miles further than it would without. I've seen this in a practical sense. A 14' aluminum fishing boat and a 35' fiberglass sailboat both in visual sight around 1 mile off on flat water. The aluminum boat gave a huge return and the fiberglass boat didn't show up at all. I got the fiberglass to show by tweaking the controls, but if I didn't know it was there I wouldn't have tried. Neither would the operator on the big ship that's about to run you down.
Nick F
Guru
- Joined
- Sep 2, 2020
- Messages
- 598
- Location
- Canada
- Vessel Name
- Callisto
- Vessel Make
- 1974 Grand Banks 42 Classic, Hull 433
+1 to gkesden
Buy a wire tracer - absolutely invaluable on a used boat. My first one cost CAD120 some years ago. I just bought another for CAD28 on Canadian Amazon.
Nick F
Buy a wire tracer - absolutely invaluable on a used boat. My first one cost CAD120 some years ago. I just bought another for CAD28 on Canadian Amazon.
Nick F
fgarriso
Guru
OP
OP
rherten
Veteran Member
- Joined
- Dec 3, 2020
- Messages
- 29
- Vessel Name
- Emelyn
- Vessel Make
- North Pacific 36
Thanks for the tip - Canadian Tire has one for sale - just added to my shopping list!
OP
OP
rherten
Veteran Member
- Joined
- Dec 3, 2020
- Messages
- 29
- Vessel Name
- Emelyn
- Vessel Make
- North Pacific 36
Got me thinking - I traced that antenna back to my AIS and have been experiencing annoying AIS signal faults. Could it be the radar reflector? Will re-mount it elsewhere this weekend and see if it helps.
