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Help identifying some equipment

Discussion in 'General Yachting Discussion' started by M/Y Serenity, Feb 25, 2017.

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  1. M/Y Serenity

    M/Y Serenity New Member

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    Hi all,

    I am trying to identify the radar and the display in the attached crops (sorry for the low resolution/quality, that's all I could get).

    The boat is American, Uniflite circa early 70's, I think.

    I cannot ascertain if the equipment is factory installed.

    Perhaps someone can help?

    identify this equipment 1.jpg identify this equipment 2.jpg
  2. K1W1

    K1W1 Senior Member

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    Those photos are next to useless, the scanner might be an ATLAS one but very hard to say for sure.
  3. captholli

    captholli Senior Member

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    Si Tex / Koden is the radar in the photo after enlarging and its a Mono LCD eighties model because trust me when I tell you that stateside in the 70's it was all Decca as far as radars on yachts were concerned. Racal bought Decca in the late 70's and it became Decca Racal for a short while but it didn't matter as there were a few Sperry units out there and a smattering of Si-Tex but the Decca 112 radar was the standard of the day and Furuno was just starting to make inroads in the late, late 70's and the early 80's but by 1982 or so it was all over for Decca. Furuno had its foot in the door and what a great foot it turned out to be not just in the door but fully through by '82-83 they owned the market share and they've never looked back... and to answer your last question no, it wasn't factory installed as no builder back then installed electronics as it was the infancy of marine electronics in the seventies. Systems like double pulse loran C and stylus depth recorders were still cutting edge. Hatteras yachts pumped boats out on their production line like doughnuts in the late 70's and 80's and they all came bare off of the assembly line electronics wise until the owner specified what they wanted through a second party electronics distributor / installer.
    Last edited: Feb 25, 2017
  4. captholli

    captholli Senior Member

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    Correction, that should have been Double pulse loran "A" for us old timers that were looking at trying to align the two circles on the CRT screen... C- Plath had "The cutting edge " machine for that and it was the size of medium igloo cooler.
  5. Capt Ralph

    Capt Ralph Senior Member

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    With all the fine history explained,, It's reef material.
    No life or value.
    I kinda think where the original post/question was leaning.
  6. Capt Ralph

    Capt Ralph Senior Member

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    With all the fine history explained,, It's reef material.
    No life or value.
    I kinda think where the original post/question was leaning.
  7. captholli

    captholli Senior Member

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    Ohh, come on Ralph, Don't be a Debbie Downer... Your of the vintage to remember "Sat Nav" or transient satellite navigation where you had a bird pass overhead every 8 to 10 hours between fix's and you had to dead recon between your last "fix" or Lat & Long.. If you were in the yachting industry working or sailing in any capacity in the mid to late seventies than you certainly remember the huge Magnavox Sat Nav's and the SBA console SSB terminals? Navadine systems? Boat drivers had to know how to triangulate off of their radars if in sight of land or just plain update / dead recon with heading, speed, set and drift / crosscheck error on those pesky paper charts of old & if they were crossing the pond there was a radio based Navigation system for aircraft that was being used for surface craft also with very limited results called Decca . I Didn't mean to scrape the scab by mentioning double pulse loran A before 'C" came along . I certainly wasn't giving you a history lesson no? You remember all of these things as you were in the industry back then wrenching DD's weren't you?
    Last edited: Feb 26, 2017
  8. M/Y Serenity

    M/Y Serenity New Member

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    Thank you all for the directions you have pointed me to, really appreciated, it also has been very educational.

    So far I am leaning on the Raytheon 2500 (or the 1200 version, impossible to determine), but the display unit is confusing me, I also completely failed to find any reference pictures of the Si Tex / Koden Mono LCD display to compare.

    captholli, thanks for the history lesson too - I am (sort of, my mind fails me lately...) familiar with SatNav - that's what I used for years, when I was not busy chatting the prettier gals back in the cabin. But Loran (in either denomination) I missed, by few years - it was VOR to VOR for me all the time.

    It is still funny that you have mentioned such use of radar - back in the days I bought this lovely Seneca II for personal use from an old lady pilot that has been operating it for years (over 15, if I remember correctly) without any NAV/ILS or GPS - radar only, coastal flying with reference to the ground - she even demonstrated to me that the tilt stabilisation was always off and the tilt dialled all the way down.

    But I digress - back to trying to determine the equipment on this fine classic.
  9. Capt Ralph

    Capt Ralph Senior Member

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    Ohh, come on Ralph, Don't be a Debbie Downer...

    I remember high tech stuff;
    Pushed an old Magnavox for a few years. Darn box DR'd well in between passes.
    Later, rotated number wheels to match a scope signal to find TDs.
    TI spoiled me with their new Loran C; after a manual toggled in master (7980), would rotate all the TDs found on a single calculator like display line.

    Circular echo flasher could hypnotize me..

    And my faverate way home was an old Radio Shack all band receiver with a AM antenna and compass built into the handle.

    ALL Reef material now. If any of this old stuff was still to turn on, they would be fire hazards.
  10. M/Y Serenity

    M/Y Serenity New Member

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    Well, I had a chance to visit the boat in question in person.

    The scanner has printed "RACAL-DECCA" on its face and that is that; the display is "EAGLE Z-9500 gps"

    So, mystery solved.

    captholli - my hat goes off to your sir for identifying the radar.

    But what is really impressive is your writings about the Loran-C - after reading the history of the EAGLE Z-9500 unit, I realised that it was manufactured with a Loran module first and only later modified to have a GPS module instead.

    Amazing!