At last I've managed to get my hands on Navico's new "broadband" (FMCW) radar. (See Radar-- but not as we know it for the original story and FMCW radar for more information.) The pictures pretty much speak for themselves:-

This is a radar picture you could never have seen before! Even in this very narrow channel, the moored boats on each side are clearly visible. So is the double row of moored boats ahead, and a slightly wider channel to the left of them. With a conventional radar, everything inside the inner range ring of the radar -- up to and including the sterns of the boats directly ahead -- would have been lost in the “main bang”.

Here's another “impossible” radar picture! By this time, I was getting blasé about being able to see things like this ruined jetty at such short ranges (the jetty is about 15m away, and the beach is about 60m) But look at the tiny metal post sticking out of the water behind the jetty, and how clearly the radar separates it from the beach, only a few feet beyond.

On this pre-production model,

It’s early days, yet, but I’m convinced that we’re in at the start of a revolution that could well mean the end of radar as we know it.

It’s not just a technological revolution, either: I reckon the stunning short-range ability of the new radar could see it gaining popularity as a tool for use in harbour as well as for the open sea – for groping your way between moored boats or for picking out a visitors’ buoy in a darkened river. And let’s face it, even for the toughest old salts, night time in harbour happens a lot more often than fog in the channel.