

There are a couple of exceptions: the small size of your vessel, operating away from traffic areas where radar navigation is used (ie. In more simple terms: boats made of wood or fibreglass that are less than 20m (66’) need to have one.

So – back to the legislation found in the Canada Shipping Act: any vessel less than 20m and made of a non-metallic material is required to carry a radar reflector. In many cases, this includes vessels constructed of fibreglass and wood. This device is a multi-faceted array made of metal that is meant to be positioned on a boat that wouldn’t normally be capable of rebounding a radar signal. This is where a radar reflector comes in. But it has limitations the most important of which is that the radar signal has to bounce off of something in order to register on the display. Radar can be used day or night, during clear or foggy conditions.The signal bounces off of objects (rocks, buoys and other vessels), and is read on a screen and interpreted by the vessel operator. Radar works by a radar unit sending out a signal.Lots of boats have radar – both commercial and pleasure.Today, radar systems are found quite commonly aboard pleasure vessels.Ī radar array, mounted to the mast, and a radar reflector secured to the spreader Some important points can be gleaned from this brief history lesson: The technology quickly spilled over into the shipping industry and commercial marine sectors. Once this was realized, a modern radar age was born – and aircraft and ships could be recognized and tracked accurately. In 1939, the USS New York battleship utilized a single antenna for both transmitting and receiving radar waves.

A ship sailing on the river unexpectedly caused fluctuations in the intensity of the received signals when it passed between the transmitter and receiver. Radar was first used practically in 1922, when researchers positioned a radio transmitter on one shore of the Potomac River and a receiver on the other. In 1904 a patent for “an obstacle detector and ship navigation device,” was issued – this device used radio echoes to determine the approximate bearing of objects To start to make sense of this, we need to delve into a bit of radar history, and have a rudimentary understanding of how it works. Radar reflectors can be mounted to the masts of boat cabins as well
