First of all, the emissions from a modern recreational radar are so weak that the folks who work with this stuff professionally tell me that the only way you can damage yourself is to literally put your head up against the radome when it's on and keep it there for days and days and days. The measured signal strength is such that sitting or standing four or five feet away from this type of radar antenna will do virtually nothing (this is NOT true of more powerful military or commercial units). The effect will be even less nothing if the exposure is infrequent, as it would be on a typical recreational boat that gets used relatively little over the course of a year.
That said, everyone I've talked to about this subject, from people at Furuno to people at Boeing to the marine electronics sales and repair shops we use, say "better safe than sorry" since every person is different and reacts to their environment differently. So it's not smart to position yourself in the path of a radar transmission regardless of how weak and harmless the signal is.
With regards to our own boat, a flying bridge face radar mount was quite common in the 60s and 70s when a lot of boats like ours had solid wood masts (or no masts). Since electronics back then were pretty heavy and bulky--- as were their connecting cables---- it was assumed that the navigation equipment would be at the lower helm station out of the weather, so that's where the boat would be conned from when the visibility or weather was bad. The flying bridge mount also makes connecting the antenna to the display unit extremely easy--- in our case with the retractable overhead display mount, the distance from the radome to the display unit is about four feet or in a straight, unobsructed line under the flying bridge consol.
The introduction of hollow aluminum masts and the miniaturizing of components like the radar antenna cable made it possible to easily mount an antenna on the mast and run the cable down and forward to the display. This is BY FAR a preferable antenna setup than the flying bridge mount for a whole lot of opeational reasons. I would never recommend a flying bridge face mount for a radar antenna--- the very few advantages are far outweighed by the disadvantages.
As I have stated in other posts, we never run our boat from the flying bridge regardless of the weather for a whole lot of reasons. So even if the transmission signal from the radar was potentially damaging, we're never going to be in a position to be in its path anyway. On the rare occasions when we have other people on the boat, we inform them of the antenna's position and make sure that nobody goes up to the flying bridge when the unit is transmitting. This isn't likely anyway in bad weather (which is the norm up here). If someone does want to go up we simply put the radar in standby while they're up there. Again, the chances the beam would affect them in any way is in theory zero but since there aren't any guarantees, better safe than sorry.
We would like to reposition the antenna to the mast although our reasons have nothing to do with health issues. But right now this project is a long ways down the "to'do" list.
-- Edited by Marin at 13:29, 2008-03-27
