NXT and X class performance reviews

[patch]

I have a 27 cc with t-top......so mount height of any radar will be about 10 feet.

I currently have 2 garmin mfd's with garmin heading sensor.

I am thinking of changing out one screen to a TZT2 12 and adding radar......

For those of you who have them....what is your satisfaction level and experience with the nxt dome and the nxt open array?

Other than target separation, does the NXT open array provide any other advantage?

Can either see birds? and if so how far? (I know the 'recommendation' is typically 12kw magnetron for birds). Bear in mind that at 10 feet my horizon is something like 5 miles.

Finally if I went with 6kw x class....will it see birds and how far. With x-class what power converter is required to convert 12v to 24v?

I am interested in keeping power draw down (hence my interest in nxt) and weight down on the tee top(to minimize impact on roll) hence the questions on the nxt dome.

rich

 

[Taniwani]

I can only tell you about the open array NXT and compare it to a 4kW classic magnetron open array scanner, so I cannot say how it would compare to a 12kW x-class unit.

The improvement over the 4kW analog unit is significant as it really picks up rather weak targets like small fire glass boats some 5-10 miles away. It also does pick up birds just nicely.
I mostly leave it to auto tune gain, sea and rain and that seems to be maybe a touch too sensitive, especially as it picks up reflections of stronger echoes on my sails. Something my old radar wasn't able to pick out from noise level and just shows what this new technique is capable of. Reducing gain, makes the false echoes disappear, but also drop some of the weaker targets, still picking up more of what my old radar would have been capable to do.

On a motor boat with an unobstructed view, I would expect none of these problems, just a superior performance. I'm quite sure that this great performance is due to the pulse compression technique and the seemingly very well implemented signal processing. I have a hard time believing that the x-class, with conventional technology would do better, but then I don't know.

When it comes to target tracking, I have not seen any radar locking on the target faster and displaying target data like speed and course within a few seconds.

That all seems to come at the price of a relatively high stand-by power consumption (about 13W) which is more than my old analog unit used heating the magnetron. On my open array version, power consumption roughly doubles when it's running. There is no explicit stand-by mode, as soon as the unit has power it starts consuming the 13W and runs a really annoying fan. You have to have a separate breaker to really turn it off.

To my knowledge, the dome version doesn't have the fan, but is identical in electronics. Just mechanics (motor) and antenna are different. The higher antenna gain of the open array is likely contributing to separating out weak targets so well.