Radar for recreational boats has undergone a sea change in recent years, transitioning from power-hungry and bulky magnetron systems to more compact, easy-to-install solid-state technology with advanced functions like auto-tracking, Doppler and more. The latest to emerge in this rapid evolution is the Cyclone series from Raymarine.
This new chirp pulse-compression solid-state radar series from Raymarine sports a radical open-array scanner. It possesses the profile of an aircraft wing, a relatively thin design made possible by a scanner using dielectric radar technology. Post-processing is engineered to remove sea and rain clutter and replicate chart-like radar images.
Designed to fit onto a wider range of vessels, the scanners are only 13.2 inches tall and weigh 51 pounds, and the aerodynamic design allows them to start and run in wind speeds up to 100 knots. Cyclone will be offered with 3-, 4- or 6-foot antenna arrays and with either a 55-watt, 6 kW-equivalent or 110-watt, 12 kW-equivalent pedestal and variable rotation speeds up to 60 rpm.
A waterproof cable gland within the pedestal gives installers the option to conceal the electrical connections by running them straight down into the mounting surface.
Cyclone’s Doppler mode displays in a three-color palette to indicate targets traveling toward, away or stationary. It also offers an enhanced bird mode that’s performance-tuned to see birds at a distance, usually in blue or green.
RangeFusion technology lets Cyclone simultaneously show the pictures from short and long ranges simultaneously, offering a range up to 96 miles. This function can combine short- and long-range pulses into a single high-clarity image that requires only one pane to view. A 50-target ARPA tracking system is standard on all models.
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“Radars are a well-established fundamental to a captain’s awareness while on the water, but we wanted to push the boundaries,” says Gregoire Outters, general manager for the Raymarine brand at Teledyne FLIR. “When developing Cyclone, we challenged ourselves to create a radar that combines both beauty and high performance.”
All Cyclone models network with Raymarine Axiom, Axiom+, Axiom Pro and Axiom XL multifunction displays. They start at $6,999.99 for a 3-foot, 55-watt model, and top out at $9,749.99 for a 110-watt, 6-foot model; raymarine.com.
