Bird mode distance NXT

davepjr71

Furuno Fan
I know that there probably isn't a hard answer to this but what is the effective range of bird mode on the NXT? Obviously it depends on the size of the flock and such but could I expect 3 miles on a good group of birds working?
 
Dave,

I have been lucky enough to have been testing both the DRS4DNXT and DRS6AX over the past year with great results, so let me try and answer your question. Obviously many factors come into play and must be considered when looking for birds with a radar. On the boat side of things, the physical radar antenna size, radar antenna height and radar antenna power are very important. On the target side, the size of the target, height of the target and distance to the target are very important. The sea state is also a factor you must consider. If you vessel is bouncing around a lot you'll be getting more reflections from the waves and will need to adjust your Bird Mode settings accordingly.

The average height of a radar mounted on a center console boat is about 9 feet off the water. That alone limits your maximum distance to all but the largest targets from 10 miles and out. Storms can be seen at maximum range due to their height in reference to your radar. Since birds are a much smaller object to see, the bigger the antenna and the more power it has produces the best results and distances. I can tell you that I have seen even small flocks of birds on the DRS4DNXT out to four miles reliably. I test on the Chesapeake Bay, so we don't have large flocks of feeding birds. What we mostly see in my area are Cormorants, which flock in small groups. They are a diving bird species. Since they fly up to look for fish then dive quick when they find them, they make a great radar target even though the are small and found in small flocks.

I have found that looking for birds on the DRS4DNXT (or any radar) takes a little getting use to, but once you understand what to look for it starts to get easier. First, as you are probably already aware, like many Furuno radars the DRS4DNXT offers a Bird Mode with three automatic settings. Calm, Moderate and Rough. Having a mode you can turn on and off like the NXT has available takes away the guess work out of setting up your radar and allows you to concentrate on your target; birds. Pick the appropriate setting for your sea state and you're ready to start looking. If it's calm out, you can just turn Bird Mode to "Calm" and your settings are pre-done for you. Same goes for when it's a little rough (choose moderate) or very rough (choose rough). The other setting you need to turn on is Target Trails. This is a must. The reason for this is birds fly in a random fashion, while most other targets like other vessels have very gradual changes to their course. When you look at your radar screen you will start to see the target trails moving in an erratic fashion. This is a clear indicator of bird movement, so keep your eye out for this type of movement and you'll start to see that what you are seeing is birds from miles away. Like I said, it takes a little getting use to knowing what to look for, but once you see it you'll know what to expect. From then on it becomes easy to spot them.

The nice thing about the DRS4DNXT is its Doppler capabilities take seeing and tracking targets to a whole new level in a 24" dome size package. With the 25W output power that is comparable to a 4kW magnetron, you'll be amazed at what targets you can see (both birds and normal targets) and the clarity you see them (both at close range and long range). The DRS4DNXT is an amazing radar that I am confident you'd be happy with choosing. If you need any other information on the DRS4DNXT or bird mode questions, please just respond to this thread.
 
Stickman,
Thank you for the detailed response. I too am also on the Chesapeake so your experience on the bay helps me a great deal. I have had the NXT for about a year but never used the bird mode like I should be. I really want to start using it more because I know I'm missing out of diving birds and got so used to my eyes and binos. Using the target trails is a fantastic recommendation that I see would really help a user. I have a TZT2: Wold that be Echo trails for me? I'll probably hit you up once I start using it more. Thanks.
 
Dave,

Absolutely. It's Echo Trails on the TZT2. Before you start using them for the first time to look for birds, here is what I'd recommend. Go into the Menu and scroll down to the Radar Tab.
Radar Menu.jpg


Open the Radar Tab and scroll down to Trail

Trail Menu.jpg

Set the Trail Length to 30 seconds. I found 30 seconds to work best for me when tracking birds. It seems to be enough time for the birds to dive and come back up into the radar beam. You can leave Trail Color, Mode and Shade the same as they are. I like the blue trail color as it contrasts nicely with the green targets of Target Analyzer mode and the red targets of normal radar mode.

After doing this just once, you'll be set for tracking birds in the future. Now all you have to do is turn Echo Trails to "On' by tapping the radar screen. When the menu pops up, just flick Echo Trails to "On" and your ready to go. And as you can see in the picture, the Bird Mode setting sits right above Echo Trails, so it's easy to change either one quickly.
Echo Trail 3.jpg



Stickman
 
Dave,

One of my favorite DRS4DNXT target pictures came while I was helping a customer out with his boat last October. He had a DRS4DNXT and (2) TZTL15F's on a 36 Yellowfin. We went to Annapolis for lunch and came out by the US Naval Academy. While we were there we were able to physically see the football team practicing on the field, both on the NXT and visually. I grabbed a quick screen capture from one of the TZTL15F screens to save it.

NA4.JPG
 
Wow, now that is impressive. I've been sharing what you are posting on THT if that is okay? There are many doubters to the power of this unit. I pick up crab pots no problem well before I see them at dusk. People can't believe picking up items like this with a dome and suggest it's only good for close up.

Are the numbers by the boats the DSC numbers?
 
Dave,

I don't mind that you share this information on The Hull Truth. Good information is always worth sharing. As far as the power of the DRS4DNXT, it's always easy to doubt without proof, which is why I always show definitive proof in my answers. I'll show you some more below.

Here is a picture of the DRS4DNXT in standard radar mode showing good targets out to 10 miles. This was sent to me from a Furuno dealer install in Connecticut a few weeks ago.

TZT2ScreenShot_2017_2_23_18_36_57.jpg

Here is the answers to your DSC question. The number you are seeing on my pictures are MMSI numbers of AIS targets showing on my screen. If you look closely, you'll see those numbers are sitting beside a "triangle" icon. The triangle icon is the industry symbol for an AIS target. A blue triangle means it's a Class A AIS target and a green triangle means it's a Class B AIS target. The cool thing is if you were to "touch" the triangle on the screen, you'd immediately see all the information being transmitted for that vessel. While AIS is not required on recreation vessels, I have to admit its an awesome piece of safety gear to have.

Below are two pictures captured off the Chesapeake Bay Bridge showing AIS information in the area I captured recently.

AIS Class AB - Copy.JPG

AIS - Copy.JPG
 
Stickman,

Here is a Google earth picture of the US Naval Academy, showing the Football Field:
 

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Thanks Deep Blue.

Pretty cool that the radar image from the NXT matches the Google Earth view perfectly. I am not surprised by this, but its still cool to see. Interesting item to note. This image from the NXT was captured right about where the boat was passing in the Google Earth image was located.

Stickman
 
So a few weeks ago I purchased and installed the Furuno DRS4D-NXT 24" RADAR. I had some space constraints on my T-Top and also didn't want to have 40 lbs up there with the DRS6AX open array. This NXT only weighs 17 lbs. The NXT has bird mode, as discussed in this thread, but I wasn't expecting it to work very well. I was impressed with the performance however. We were fishing in the Bahamas this weekend and it was consistently spotting small groups of just 4 or 5 birds at over 3 NM. I think it could mark birds at longer distances too but we didn't have that much time to play with it. I also didn't tweak any settings - just turned on Bird Mode and then answered the prompt regarding sea state. BTW - it was pretty calm so that helped.
 
seaveepete,

Good to hear that you are having great results with your new DRS4D-NXT, including when you are using the "Bird Mode" feature..!

Please keep us posted with your experiences and any feedback regarding the unit.

-Deep Blue :D
 
Quick update... we spent some time in the Bahamas last week fishing and looking for tuna so I was running the NXT radar a lot. First day was flat calm and we spotted Frigate birds and small groups of tuna birds out to just under 3 nautical miles. Never saw a large group of concentrated tuna birds so can't say if we could pick them up further out or not. I meant to get screen shots but we were kind of busy.
Second day was 2-3' chop and I played around with switching between the calm and moderate setting when selecting bird mode - the calm setting ramps the gain up and moderate/rough backs it off to minimize sea scatter. Whether it was due to the sea state or a lack of birds in the area, we had very little luck spotting anything when it was less than flat calm.
I didn't try going into manual mode or tweaking anything else but maybe I'll try that next time.
 
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