You wrote your question just for me, didn't you?
Shoot, I've been practically shouting about my radar installation with the Edson pole--I am so pleased with it on my Hunter 380. I bought the super delux best pole that Edson makes and put it on my port stern. The base is located on the lower level where the hatches are located and up against the side of the propane locker. The base is the one that you can lower down the pole for radar maintainance. It is supported against the stern seat railing where it curves out. Edson does a great job in their support for that rail--it looks good and doesn't feel bad to lean against. The only thing bad about this installation is that seagulls love to sit on my radar dome and do their thing over the stern of the boat. It is good that Hunter has stern showers so I can wash up after them. I know, everyone and their mother has told me how to get rid of the seagulls but the birds are wining the war and then some. I've tried everything. I'm getting desperate and think I will put Haggis on top of the dome to feed the damn birds. No one but me likes Haggis and the birds probably won't like it either. I installed the radar display on the arch directly in line with the helmsman while standing. Perfect place for me, all I have to do is look up to see my charts or the radar display. Wiring was relatively easy a well. Be sure to put a drip loop where the coaixial cable leaves the pole and enters the stern of the boat. You want enough to be able to let the pole down. Easy enough to forget that when installing. One wire goes to the main panel--probably the hardest part of the wiring for the on/off switch. The rest go up into the arch to the display. Another wire needs to go to your GPS, wind instruments, etc. so that your radar display will talk to the GPS and know where you are. Raymarine does a good job of having their instruments talk to each other. My pole is tall enought that the microwave will not hurt someone on the foredeck. I also added a pully under the radar dome for my American Flag display. I really like this feature as I get the flag out of the way--it can be easly seen by other boats and unfortuneately, I can also lower it to half mast, something I've done too much in recent times. Once I installed the Edson pole which is powder white, I liked it so much that I intalled the Forespar motor launch pole (the small one for my Honda two horse outboard) which is also powder white on the startboard side which I leave up. It is a busy stern but It really makes it look like a working sailboat instead of a party boat. Edson does make a motor hoist for the pole which you make want to consider. I wanted to balance the stern. By the way, I believe you can see a picture of all this in the photo forum under the subject dinghy davits. If you have any more questions, give a shout. Les
