SNEAK PEEK AT NEW RADARS

While we’re planning a more in-depth look at radars later this year, both Furuno and Garmin have introduced dome-enclosed radars that warrant mention now.

Furuno’s DRS2DNXT features a 19-inch enclosed antenna that delivers 48 nautical miles of range using a solid-state transmitter. The system relies on Furuno’s proprietary Target Analyzer feature, which uses Doppler technology to assign various colors to targets to graphically differentiate potentially dangerous ones from benign objects, vessels and landmasses. Additional features include Furuno’s proprietary Rezboost beam sharpening, dual-range mode and Auto Acquire, the latter of which automatically tracks all targets within 3 nautical miles of the radar.

Garmin’s GMR Fantom 18X and GMR Fantom 24x radars employ the same architecture and deliver similar feature sets using different antenna lengths. The radars can be configured with either an 18-inch or 24-inch antenna, both with 50 watts of transmitting power, and—in a Garmin first—black or white radome enclosures. Garmin’s newest Fantoms all leverage solid-state transmitters and deliver Garmin’s proprietary Doppler processing, called Motionscope, dual-range mode and a sailor-friendly power-save mode.

Stay tuned!