Radar Not Working

Tug

New member
Today was the first day that i had the time to turn on the Radar that came with the boat when i bought it.. ..It is a 1985 Si-Tex Marine Radar ..Model T-100 .. i turned it to SB ( preheating ) and waited a few minutes than turned it to ON......Nothing happened..the screen was blank.. According to the manual the radar should of started transmitting. Is there another key(s) to bring a picture to the screen..........What i wanted to know is....if the radar is un-operable how do i remove the radar dome , is there going to be a big hole there . Also does the boats' engine have to be running or will the radar operate just off the batteries.Thanks Tug
 
Tug,
First check your fuses and or circuit breakers. Then I would suggest that you have the engine running to ensure that you're getting enough voltage to your radar set. That said, if it doesn't work I don't have any ideas to help.

Looking at your photo album, my suspicion is that you will have a few mounting screw holes, plus one larger hole for the cable pass through. Before you take things apart, I recommend that you take boat and all to a local marine electronics shop and ask them to do a quick checkout. They might just find something that is real easy to cure.

It may just be time to bring your electronics up to date. A 25 year old set is pretty dated.

Steve
 
Did any pan
nel lights come on? When you turned the transmit on, could you hear the radar wave guide motor running?

I agree; a Sitex 100 is an older unit--and not top of the line at its prime. You may have problems finding parts. It could be simple as suggested: fuse, connection etc.
 
I am checking the connections and fuse today.When i turn on the unit all is dead...no humming/lights nothing...i e-mailed the previous owner and asked him if the units did work but no reply so far.Hope it is a fuse..something simple. ha!ha! Tug
 
Tug, when you checked the connections, did you pull them out of the receptacles and look for corrosion on both pins and sockets? Also, any corrosion on the power wires and/or fuse holders.
 
I changed the 5 amp fuse and pulled out the connections...there are all very clean with no corrosion.I tried to trace the wires to the battery but they are lost in the maze of wires...There are two positive and two negative wire that go to both batteries that i assume are connected to the Radar. If i disconnect them from the batteries it seems that there is no effect on my other systems. ( the wires may be from some of the old elctronic that came with the boat that i removed )..All my breaker lights light up and everything works.On the unknown positive wires there are little tube like cylinders that are part of the terminal ring connectors..resistors/breakers i do not know what there are...........Strange thing is that if i put a voltage light tester on these the tester lights up...but if i go down the positive wire two inches and stab the wire i can not get the tester to light up....i thought of cutting these off and reconnecting the positive wires with new ring connectors but wasn't sure if i should untill i know what their purpose was...any ideas ....Tug
 
Got an e-mail from the previous owner today and i am assured that the radar was in working order when the boat was delivered. So now i am left with trying to figure out why the unit is dead...i was going to put a light tester on the connections on the back of the display unit to see if any power was getting to the unit but is that a safe thing to do...doesn't the display unit store high voltage. Just a thought....by adding the Perko battery switch would that cause this problem if the radar was wired to both batteries. Tug
 
Radar is up and running.......the problem was the power plug at back of the display unit.When i was putting the display unit back in the mounting unit i noticed a flicker of light on one of the buttons.I removed the power plug and after inspecting it discovered that the positive and negative pins were lose in the receiver. Guess they were not making a good enough contact. Turned the unit to off and used a long thin nail to close up the receivers and then the plug fit in real tight. Guess they lose during transport across the country.Turned on the unit and after warming it up put it to on and the unit fired up..Thanks everyone for the help to get it up and running . Tug
 
Back
Top