Johnny, I went offshore this weekend with the Furuno manual in hand. I went out of Ponce Inlet on the east coast of Florida. Sea conditions were flat with a slight 1 foot wind chop. I was running the boat at about 28-30 mph. Around me that I could see without binoculars was a shrimp boat, parachute towed behind a boat and several center consoles. No matter what I did, the radar couldn't pick up the shrimp boat at a distance greater than 1/4-1/2 mile and then would appear/disappear on the screen. Same for the towed parachute and the center consoles. I had the radar in manual and adjusted gain, sea and rain but could not zero in a consistent setting. The Furuno DRS4D-NXT (24) is mounted flat on the fiberglass hardtop near the front edge. I am guessing that the tolerance works inshore but because of the flat mounting we "lose everything" with any kind of bounce in the hull running. My question is if I were to invest in a scanstrut and get the radome up 6 inches and utilize some negative wedge to point it downward would that improve my offshore performance or is this radar more for ICW navigation?