Doppler Radar

/ shellerina

After securing last eve in Solomons MD, I started playing with my Raymarine’s RADAR. Doppler is not a setting that I usually use underway. I usually have it on chart plotter overlay. So the echos show up on top of the chart with ATONs and the land around us.

Here is a pic of what I saw in Doppler radar mode when I first turned it on.

The red dot means there is something moving towards me. The white echos are all objects or land that are static, neither moving closer nor further away.

Sure enough on my starboard quarter, there was a boat approaching us, going by us while we were tied up at the T-head dock.

After this boat got passed us, the radar echos from this boat turned green on our starboard bow. Green because he is a moving object but moving away from us.

You can imagine how helpful this would be if we were underway on a moonless night or in thick fog.

You might ask, “What is the stationary (white) object on the other side of the channel, just forward of your starboard beam?”

That is an ATON (aid to navigation) marking the right side of the channel for boats like the one that just went by.

In chart overlay mode this is what that ATON looks like up close… here doppler is off, and all echos are yellow or orange.

((Ignore the sailboat icon… clicking on it just gives me the nearby marina name on that side of the channel. It has nothing to do with the ATON or radar. ))
Here, not so up close, you can see the land, buildings, and docks drawn along with their radar echos.

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