Can someone recommend a practical radar mount for Mac26x. Radar getting cheaper, used and new. Yea it may be more of a novelty for a trailer sailor. But Mac26x best choice for my desire to move about the USA for short adventures.
Recommend practical radar mount for Mac26x
- Thread starter TortugasRoyal
- Start date
- Status
The pole CAN end up costing you as much as the dome! We used one of these on our boat, but we also know of people that fab'ed theirs from an aluminum pipe. If you go that route just use this page for ideas to copy! The tricks are the top and bottom mounting plates.
http://www.seaviewglobal.com/en/categories/300000010
http://www.seaviewglobal.com/en/categories/300000010
I'd take a hard look at AIS. The last radio we bought, for the Endeavour, has it as part of the radio and uses the same VHF antenna. The radio was $240, less than most AIS standalone units. It isn't the same as radar, but I've read more than one person post that has both say that they now mostly rely on the AIS.
I guess it might come down to are you using it to track large ships that move fast (you are in shipping lanes) or are you using it more for fog or night sailing or motoring. We've been in fog a couple times in Florida and just stayed put. We don't night sail, but might once or twice in the future. We hope to possibly go up the east coast of Florida or over to the Bahamas and maybe as far north as Long Island Sound. For those situations I think the AIS will work well for us.
So the question is what are you trying to achieve with radar?
Sum
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]============================[/FONT]
Our Endeavour 37
Our MacGregor 26-S Pages
Our Trips to Utah, Idaho, Canada, Florida
Mac-Venture Links
I guess it might come down to are you using it to track large ships that move fast (you are in shipping lanes) or are you using it more for fog or night sailing or motoring. We've been in fog a couple times in Florida and just stayed put. We don't night sail, but might once or twice in the future. We hope to possibly go up the east coast of Florida or over to the Bahamas and maybe as far north as Long Island Sound. For those situations I think the AIS will work well for us.
So the question is what are you trying to achieve with radar?
Sum
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]============================[/FONT]
Our Endeavour 37
Our MacGregor 26-S Pages
Our Trips to Utah, Idaho, Canada, Florida
Mac-Venture Links
Hi Sum!
Fog and night and as another toy to play with. Be nice to figure out how to display all (radar, ais) on a droid application. nmea and navonics chart working on son's droid phone for fun and as experiment and wound up practical. Tossed the laptop.
yep, on a poll off the stern is the only way (I'd) go...
-too much weight aloft on a WB boat... plus the complexity of dropping the mast.
-too much weight aloft on a WB boat... plus the complexity of dropping the mast.
If you have a DMK box any info you have on NMEA 0183 can be broadcast via wifi to an app that can use if. For instance iNavX can and will show AIS targets and boat info on the screen.
http://dmkyacht.com/
RADAR and weather much harder to do wireless due to bandwidth requirements. Our Lowrance/Simrad network is NMEA2000 but uses Ethernet to share and overlay RADAR and sat weather.
Yea my setup can't handle the bandwidth of radar. thanx for pointing that out and saving me some study time!
I've got a
Troy500 Wireless Serial Server
connected to the raymarine E85001 SeaTalk to RS232 Bridge to broadcast nmea wifi. I don't think the 85001 box can send data faster than 4800 buad. That's going to be a problem with an ais device if I purchase that as well.
Update: For radar considering garmin GMR18 dome and opencpm http://opencpn.org/ocpn/ with gradar plugin https://github.com/bdbcat/gradar_pi
gonna be stuck the the laptop still, no droid opencpm application
Last edited:
The OpenCPN with radar idea is neat. Does it do radar overlays? Cool if yes.... But remember you will need a rate compass on your network for it to function at all.Yea my setup can't handle the bandwidth of radar. thanx for pointing that out and saving me some study time!
I've got a
Troy500 Wireless Serial Server
connected to the raymarine E85001 SeaTalk to RS232 Bridge to broadcast nmea wifi. I don't think the 85001 box can send data faster than 4800 buad. That's going to be a problem with an ais device if I purchase that as well.
Update: For radar considering garmin GMR18 dome and opencpm http://opencpn.org/ocpn/ with gradar plugin https://github.com/bdbcat/gradar_pi
gonna be stuck the the laptop still, no droid opencpm application
A opencpn app for droid might be a bit much to expect... But you never know.. I think a screen replicator between the PC and the phone might be more plausible, and those exist now.
I believe they are working on an android version and I also believe that you can possibly run it now on an android using some other available software but can't give you a link.
Also looks like the radar deal might now also be possible, but I didn't read through this whole link....
http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/f134/opencpn-radar-overlay-plugin-79081.html
...and it sounds like what they are working on is specific to Garmin radar.
Here are plugins for OpenCPN that are for sure up and running....
http://opencpn.org/ocpn/downloadplugins
We will use the AIS one once we have the new radio wired and working. We used SeaClear II for our Florida trips and it worked great as we were in all new to us water there. We are switching to OpenCPN though as there is a lot of new things being developed for it. We will use the NV-Charts plugin to use those charts if we get a chance to go to the Bahamas.
One thing that is really helpfull for trip planning is that you can have real time and future tide and current data from NOOA tide and current stations displayed on the chart....
...at any time as shown above for current in knots at the 7 Mile Bridge in the Keys for a specific date. With SeaClear I could not get this info and had to use the Garmin handheld for tidal info for any day, but had no way to get current in knots information for a location.
We recently picked up one of the Gateway Netbooks from Walmart for $228...
.... and I put OpenCPN on it the other day and hooked up a $35 GPS puck and also a $15 USB to serial data cable to connect one of our Garmin Handhelds to it and it works great as a chart plotter and uses very little elect. compared to our laptops. We will use it as backup to the boat's computer that we have been using....
http://purplesagetradingpost.com/sumner/macgregor-navigation/Compter-Nav-index.html
It has a 320 gig hard drive so plenty of storage for anything. I have all of the NOAA charts from Maine to Texas on it and our web site and everything else I have on the other computers.
We liked it so much we bought a second one so that Ruth and I don't have to fight over the one while on the road. I type a lot and can't stand not having a real keyboard and mouse so this works way better for me than any of the pads. Also you can see it outside. Not great, but in a pinch you can view the screen. On a trip we just take a minute and download waypoints to the handheld and use it in the cockpit,
Sum
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]============================[/FONT]
Our Endeavour 37
Our MacGregor 26-S Pages
Our Trips to Utah, Idaho, Canada, Florida
Mac-Venture Links
I believe they are working on an android version and I also believe that you can possibly run it now on an android using some other available software but can't give you a link.
Also looks like the radar deal might now also be possible, but I didn't read through this whole link....
http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/f134/opencpn-radar-overlay-plugin-79081.html
...and it sounds like what they are working on is specific to Garmin radar.
Here are plugins for OpenCPN that are for sure up and running....
http://opencpn.org/ocpn/downloadplugins
We will use the AIS one once we have the new radio wired and working. We used SeaClear II for our Florida trips and it worked great as we were in all new to us water there. We are switching to OpenCPN though as there is a lot of new things being developed for it. We will use the NV-Charts plugin to use those charts if we get a chance to go to the Bahamas.
One thing that is really helpfull for trip planning is that you can have real time and future tide and current data from NOOA tide and current stations displayed on the chart....
...at any time as shown above for current in knots at the 7 Mile Bridge in the Keys for a specific date. With SeaClear I could not get this info and had to use the Garmin handheld for tidal info for any day, but had no way to get current in knots information for a location.
We recently picked up one of the Gateway Netbooks from Walmart for $228...
.... and I put OpenCPN on it the other day and hooked up a $35 GPS puck and also a $15 USB to serial data cable to connect one of our Garmin Handhelds to it and it works great as a chart plotter and uses very little elect. compared to our laptops. We will use it as backup to the boat's computer that we have been using....
http://purplesagetradingpost.com/sumner/macgregor-navigation/Compter-Nav-index.html
It has a 320 gig hard drive so plenty of storage for anything. I have all of the NOAA charts from Maine to Texas on it and our web site and everything else I have on the other computers.
We liked it so much we bought a second one so that Ruth and I don't have to fight over the one while on the road. I type a lot and can't stand not having a real keyboard and mouse so this works way better for me than any of the pads. Also you can see it outside. Not great, but in a pinch you can view the screen. On a trip we just take a minute and download waypoints to the handheld and use it in the cockpit,
Sum
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]============================[/FONT]
Our Endeavour 37
Our MacGregor 26-S Pages
Our Trips to Utah, Idaho, Canada, Florida
Mac-Venture Links
Sum,
Thanks great info. For sure they are working on radar overlay, and also mention the need for heading info to make it work. Sadly they mention the notion of grabbing GPS COG (course over ground) data, which I think is dumb at best and dangerous much too often. On a sailboat heading almost never equals course, and can be off 1-45 degrees depending on the situation. You never know when it's off or buy how much.
Yep that can get you into real trouble in some of the shallow water following the ICW in Florida,
Sum
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]============================[/FONT]
Our Endeavour 37
Our MacGregor 26-S Pages
Our Trips to Utah, Idaho, Canada, Florida
Mac-Venture Links
- Status