Carver Owners Forum

Hi Everyone,
I need to replace my original Furuno Radar on my 396.
I'm looking for and inexpensive unit as I no longer go offshore, mostly Barnegat Bay to Atlantic City, NJ.
I would like to do this myself along with my son. Can anyone give some advice as to start this project?
Which ever unit I purchase I will be buying a new compatible multi function GPS unit after the radar is done.
Any help would be much appreciated.

paulr wrote:Source of the post I'm looking for and inexpensive unit as I no longer go offshore

I have an idea you can get into life threatening situations just as easily 400 yards from shore as miles from shore.....maybe more, many times it is the other targets around you. My advice , get quality.

I wasn't talking about poor quality. Furuno, Simrad, Garmin, Raymarine. I'm talking about the best bang for the buck. Unless they are poor quality.

You'll probably have to buy the multifunction display at the same time as the radar. I don't think you can have a radar from one brand and the MFD from another, but I'd love to find out I'm wrong/outdated on that info. The MFD probably costs as much or more as a basic radar, and IMHO is a more important consideration since the MFD is what you will be using directly.

I have a Garmin and have had to remove the radar twice for hurricanes (I'm in a height restricted slip due to cover). The hardest part is handling the radar aloft. Install is pretty easy with just two cables to hook up.

I’ve become a big fan of garmin stuff. If you are planning to integrate a new plotter/gps unit as well I would def give them a good look. One benefit is they now own Navionics so your electronic charts + updates are included and you also have access to their active captain capabilities. I’ve been able to pick up 2 new plotters with sonar the last couple years at a substantial discount as they have been blowing them out during the winter months here in Canada. Bang for buck I would go Garmin. That being said, If you look at what the commercial ships are using for radar you will see allot of Furuno. Not a fan of raymarine stuff as I have had some bad luck with them.

Thanks for the feedback.
I've had some feedback from 2 other sites and Garmin and Furuno seems to be the direction to go.
Now the search starts.

I just replaced my 20 yr old Raymarine MFD and, while I don’t need radar at all, I noticed some decent bundled savings when buying the mfd with their radar and ducer. And just for your branding question, I wanted to keep it all Raymarine (separate depth is also Ray) and found a damn good Black Friday price but found their answer to everything is a $70 adapter. Need to surface mount and cover the existing hole? $70 trim ring. Plug in their own transducer with a Raymarine connector on it? $70 for an adapter to their own connector. Plus there’s zero info on what their Lighthouse mapping actually covers for my specific lake so add $100 Navionics card. Ended up with a much brighter Simrad display that didn’t need a trim ring, the same airmar transducer but with a Simrad connector plugs right in, and the mapping has the detail I need without adding another card. Basically came out $240 cheaper. That being said, the old unit was still working so it’s good quality, I just hate the nickel and dime part of Raymarine. My research showed that any of the comparable units between Ray, Simrad, and Garmin were all pretty equal overall and it’s mostly user preferences and compatibility with other equipment that pushes you one direction or the other.

My experience over the years has also been that Garmin has been the most user friendly, intuitive stuff I have ever had. My opinion anyhow.

Don't have to have a doctorate to operate it...

I will say there is some awful nice stuff out there now with mfd's to show you all the parameters you want to monitor on your boat at just a touch......

bud37 wrote:Source of the post My experience over the years has also been that Garmin has been the most user friendly, intuitive stuff I have ever had. My opinion anyhow.

Don't have to have a doctorate to operate it...

I will say there is some awful nice stuff out there now with mfd's to show you all the parameters you want to monitor on your boat at just a touch......

Agreed… very intuitive, I don’t think I’ve ever even needed to look at a manual. The old lowrance stuff I had before was a different story.

The best radar I ever used was on old Sperry CRT unit they had on this tug/barge combo I worked on for a while. You could pick up a seagull on the water at 3 nm away when dialed in correctly. It probably weighed 500lbs though and wouldn’t be practical in todays digital world.