Ben has described these as exciting times for marine radar, with so much change and improvement underway. That means it's also perplexing time for someone with modest means who wants to buy a radar. I have a bias to Raymarine, given the rest of the electronics onboard. What advice is there for someone re: radar - wait? jump in?
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Thanks for asking, Scott. I was going to say the new Raymarine Quantum solid state 18-inch radar seems quite capable, especially good for sailboats, and reasonably priced.
https://www.panbo.com/archives/2016/01/raymarine_quantum_solid-state_chirp_pulse_compression_radar_in_radome_form.html
https://www.panbo.com/archives/2016/02/solid_state_radar_1_long_ranges_and_deep_thoughts.html
But in the process I noticed that there are now two models of the Quantum, the new one even less expensive.
It's not listed on Raymarine's site yet, but I think the new part # E70344 is the same Quantum but with only the WiFi data connection, not the Ethernet option, for $1,300 instead of $1,600:
http://www.wmjmarine.com/e70344.html
I saw the WiFi connection working well on the demo described in that second link, but that was on a T-top where the radar and MFD were very close to each other.