| Author | Message | ||
     David Sheriff Board Administrator Username: admin Post Number: 303 Registered: 01-2004 |
Make certain between this session and the next that everyone on your team is competent in radar on both boats. If not, help them until they are. By now, most of this should be getting reflexive. Also make sure everyone can keep the boat on course by looking at their GPS. We may or may not have charts on the Pilgrimage set. | ||
| David Sheriff Board Administrator Username: admin Post Number: 302 Registered: 01-2004 |
I'm working through a major computer crash. Has a way of diverting one's attention. I either have a motherboard or a processor/memory problem on my main computer. Thursday we will be going back and forth on lines to simplify the navigation. I will give you the line end coordinates ahead of time. Bring your handheld GPS to do the navigation part. You will find it does a very nice job of giving you headings to the cursor. Move the cursor from one end of the line to the other. We will stay on the same boats as last week. The focus this time is strictly on radar, get all the other clutter off the screen. For the first few passes we will run parallel lines and then run on the same line, which will produce collision courses. Review the rules for collision avoidance. If I get the radar buoy together we will alternately converge on that to get a feel for minimum useful radar range. Get your issues from last week resolved using the equipment manuals. In two weeks we will switch boats and equipment again. Make sure everyone on each team can operate the equipment this session and next session. On radar, everyone should be able to do the following by personally operating the controls: 1. Power up the equipment, adjust the screen brightness, and power down again at the end so the next person can power up. 2. Get the radar going. Switch to manual tuning and observe targets on the screen at least a mile away to optimize tuning. You will probably have to lower gain to adjust tuning. 3. Switch ranges between 6-10 miles and 2-3 miles. Note how the picture changes and how the same targets change position on the screen. Have the boat change heading and make sure you can track relative bearing. Make use of the adjustable range and bearing controls. If you are in the vicinity of commercial shipping or fast power boats you will need to check longer ranges periodically to make sure someone is not sneaking up on you. 4. How far away can you pick up targets? Try the maximum range. Make sure you use enough gain to be certain to find all potential targets. This means seeing some noise and clutter. Can you see Catalina or anyone in the shipping lanes? 5. Move to a range of one to several miles. Turn up gain until you get wave clutter near the boat. Adjust the STC control (whatever it is called) to almost eliminate wave clutter but leave enough sea return to preserve returns from close-in targets. 6. Turn up the gain and note how strong targets become segments of circles. You are picking up signals out of the main lobe of the antenna. Adjust the gain so that you can see everything out there but circle segments are minimized. If you see a freighter close by you will get the circle effect. Recognize what it is. You may find that "auto" does a good job with gain and tuning, but be able to override them. If not, you cannot get a feel for how well the "auto" setting is working. You have to push the gain to the extremes to see if "auto" is appropriate for conditions. 7. Find the FTC control. We're probably not going to have rain, but switch it in and out. When it's turned up high, distant faint targets may fade out if you turn the gain down ahead of time to ensure they are faint. Get a feel for how much you can apply without affecting targets at moderate range. 8. Return controls to their normal position and shut down the set. | ||
| David Sheriff Board Administrator Username: admin Post Number: 300 Registered: 01-2004 |
Notes for number three. I will post the list of "things you should be able to do." People should bring their GPSs to record the track of the boat they are on as one of us who you might think is doing the job may not be. |
