Posted on September 10, 2020
Garmin has launched its highest-powered solid-state marine radar: the new Fantom 254/256 series.
It uses Garmin’s signature MotionScope™ technology to detect and highlight moving targets in different colours, helping users avoid potential collisions, find flocks of birds and track weather.
Now with more than double the power of the existing Fantom 124/126, new features include scan-to-scan averaging and improved MARPA with Automatic Acquisition, providing improved target precision and more visibility of what lies ahead to further a user’s situational awareness on the water.
“We know that the demands of offshore navigation require the most reliable and feature-rich marine radars, which is why we are excited to offer customers our highest-powered solid-state radar series on the market,” said Dan Bartel, vice president of global consumer sales. “The increased power and pulse compression technology of the new Fantom 254/256 radars gives best-in-class target detection range and image resolution, making them the ideal radar solution for anyone desiring to equip their vessel with the highest end marine tech.”
With a target range of 5 metres to 96 nautical miles, the Fantom 254/256 is claimed to outperform even 25kW magnetron radars by maximising energy and range resolution using pulse compression technology. Narrow horizonal beam width also assists in creating a high-resolution image and high-sensitivity target detection capabilities. Equipped with MotionScope technology and adjustable speed threshold, this series instantly detects moving targets in real-time—such as other boats, flocks of birds or the weather ahead—with easy-to-see, coloured highlights as targets approach or retreat from the vessel. True echo trails take boat speed into account to help captains quickly identify potential collision threats.
The new Fantom 254/256 is the first from Garmin to include scan-to-scan averaging, a feature which reduces the sea clutter and interferences in the display view for a clear, visual scope of water ahead. Together with Dynamic Auto Gain, Multi-level target size, and Dynamic Sea Filter features, scan-to-scan averaging is claimed to strengthen long-range performance and stationary target detection by eliminating the clutter that might interfere with positioning and target detection consistency.
Also new to Fantom 254/256, mini-automatic radar plotting aid (MARPA) Automatic Acquisition lets users simultaneously trigger and track up to 30 targets with no user prompting on all returns, boundary zones, guard zones, or MotionScope.
By Jake Frith
Source: maritimejournal
