It should be installed in an area where it is a minimum 4m (13.1 ft) above the waterline and higher than all the surrounding superstructures to insure that you’ll be seen on the radar screen of large ships and fishing boats. Optical corner reflectors, called corner cubes or cube corners, made of three-sided glass prisms, are used in surveying and laser ranging. Radar corner reflectors made of metal are used to reflect radio waves from radar sets. This being said, when navigating in busy seaways, at night or far from land, a radar reflector is a rather cheap device to have and one that is easy to rig up. The three intersecting surfaces often have square shapes. When buying a reflector, there is no substitute for size, so buy the biggest one that is practicable for your boat. There are different radar reflector models that can be used.Ī radar reflector can enhance your safety on the water, but only if it’s big enough and well placed on your boat. Radar reflectors are used to help larger vessels spot smaller vessels on their radar screens to help avoid collisions on the water, as well as to facilitate search and rescue operations if necessary. The small size of your boat and/or its operation away from radar navigation and large shipping lanes might make having a radar reflector impracticable and, therefore, is not needed.
This is due to a 90-degree depression angle or the slope of the surface. If you are operating your vessel in limited traffic conditions, daylight hours and in favourable environmental conditions, a radar reflector is not needed because it isn’t essential to the boat’s safety. For the perfect specular reflector, radar returns (backscatter) exist only near vertical incidence. ONLY REQUIRED UNDER CERTAIN CONDITIONS: Although radar reflectors are required for boats under 20m and boats that are built of mostly non-metallic materials, there are some exceptions where a radar reflector is not required
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