Many years ago, after a passage up the coast from Norfolk, Virginia, I approached New York Harbor in a real pea-soup fog. As I neared the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, fog horns and the low-pitched throbbing of ship engines seemed to come at me from all sides. I looked off to port as a Plimsoll mark passed by, maybe 50 feet away. I couldn't see the ship it was attached to, just a slight darkening of the fog bank. Yep, a radar would've come in pretty handy that day.

 Back then, in the time of Dick Nixon, a radar was an expensive investment, but today there's no reason not to carry one aboard even the smallest boat. A compact set with a basketball-sized 2-kW radome and waterproof LCD display costs about $1,500 retail; it's ideal for a 20-something center console or a walkaround fishboat. No, its performance won't equal that of even slightly more powerful radars, but it'll have enough range for normal piloting and will help you stay clear of ships, shorelines and other things that can hurt you. Interface a bare-bones GPS/chartplotter and you'll have an adequate electronics package that will get you home safely if the weather turns bad unexpectedly.

However, if you're like me, "adequate" doesn't cut it. We want something cool to show off to our buddies. And we're in luck: This year, nearly all the electronics manufacturers have come out with black-box multifunction systems combining GPS, chartplotter, sounder/fishfinder, radar and sometimes even video inputs with a single LCD display.You can cycle among the sensors, or split the screen and show two or three at once. Some let you superimpose radar echoes over the chartplotter image, so you can relate one with the other at a glance-great for determining which blip is a buoy, and which is another boat.Yeah, complex, high-end black-box systems are expensive: Northstar's do-everything 8000i, with a 15-inch display and your choice of a couple of dozen inputs, retails for about $11,000. But Raymarine, Furuno,Lowrance, Interphase, Si-Tex, Simrad, Northstar, Navman, Garmin, JRC and undoubtedly other manufacturers,all make more affordable multifunction systems for smaller boats. Shop around and you should find one that suits both your boat and your budget. If you already have a chartplotter and sounder, you can buy just the display and radar scanner this year and add more later on. That's what's cool about black-box systems: You can keep plugging in more stuff until your wallet runs dry.

Split screens are now the norm on radar units.

So let's think about the radar alone; the cool factor of black-box systems comes from interlinking plotter, sounder, radar, etc.-the radars themselves are basically what we've been seeing for years. The good news is, even the least expensive radars, whether black-box or standalone, have the necessary features. You'll have one or two variable range markers (VRM), which you move over a target and then read its range in nautical miles from your boat; electronic bearing lines (EBL), also one or two, which you move over a target and read its relative bearing from your boat; and auto-tune, which lets the radar adjust the gain, sea- and rain-clutter to produce the best screen image in nasty weather. Almost every radar has a bunch of options, too, but these are all you really need.

Most radars let you interface a GPS, so you can move the cursor over a target and read its lat/long off the screen, making it easier to refer to the chart or plotter and figure out what the target is, or isn't. A GPS also lets you opt for seeing target bearings in degrees true or magnetic, rather than relative, which makes it easier to transfer them from radar to chart. (Relative bearings use the bow of your boat as 0 degrees, and read clockwise from there: abeam to starboard is 90 degrees relative, dead astern 180, and so forth.To convert a relative bearing to magnetic, add to it your boat's magnetic heading at the time the bearing is taken; subtract 360 if the result is greater than that.) Again, black-boxes have the chartplotter built-in, so all of the above becomes a lot easier; standalone radars make you do a bit more piloting work.

Different radars have different control setups, so try out as many models as you can before buying to see which you prefer. I like rotary knobs that let me adjust the range scale, EBLs and VRMs directly, but many modern sets use soft buttons, touch-pads, joysticks, menus or other newfangled procedures. When you try the radar in the electronics shop, take a buddy along and have him push you really hard once every second or so while you adjust the radar, to simulate real-world conditions on your boat. Some procedures that seem great in the store are useless underway in a chop.

The bad news? The least-powerful, and least-expensive, radars use 2-kW scanners, but you'll be happier with a 4-kW scanner, even though it'll cost more. Why? First, a more powerful scanner can punch through rain, fog, snow, etc., better than a weaker one, and paint an accurate radar picture precisely when you need it the most. A 4-kW scanner is usually larger than a 2-kW model, and, thanks to the irony of physics, produces a narrower beamwidth-the horizontal spread of the signal. A narrower beamwidth is better at resolving targets, displaying two distinct blips for targets close together, rather than showing them as a single large echo.

My friend and electronics guru Sean Farrell describes narrow vs. wide beamwidth as the difference between painting with an artist's brush or a 4 inch mop; the little brush brings out the details. But remember: It's the physical size of the scanner, not the power, that affects beamwidth, so if the radar you're buying comes with a selection of scanners, pick the largest one that will fit aboard your boat.

Does range matter? A typical 2-kW radar has a nominal range of 24 nautical miles, meaning if a target that far away is poking its head above the horizon, the radar should spot it. A 4-kW set's range is usually 48 n.m. However, since radar signals are line-ofsight, unless the scanner is mounted very high, and the target is very tall, the range is only an arbitrary number. For example, if a 4-kW scanner were mounted 20 feet above the water, it wouldn't "see" a 90 foot-high target until it was less than 17 n.m. away, within range of even a 2-kW scanner. When it comes to piloting in zero visibility, who cares about things 24 miles away? You want an accurate, detailed picture of things that are about to hit you, and for that you need signal power and narrow beamwidth.

CRT or LCD display? LCD is the future; most of the newest radars for yacht service, including the multifunction systems, have LCD displays. LCDs are da bomb: they're more compact vs. screen size than CRTs, weigh less, use less juice, can be made waterproof, display high-resolution images, and so forth. However, there's nothing wrong with CRTs, and many standalone radars with big-screen displays (10 inch diagonal plus) are CRT. Furuno also builds a 4-kW radar, Model 1731 Mk3, with a 7-inch CRT display. At under $3,000 retail, about $500 less than a typical 4-kW LCD set, it's a good choice for skippers who already have a chartplotter and sounder. Only thing is, CRTs have to be mounted out of the weather, since they are splashproof, not waterproof; they're great in a pilothouse. As for screen size, bigger is better, especially in black-box systems where the display will often be split into 2, 3 or 4 sections.

Speaking of display size, if you don't mind being shipmates with a personal computer, you can load a laptop with charting software, connect a GPS, radar scanner and maybe even a transducer through a black box, and set up your own system. The bigger screen of the laptop will be an advantage when viewing two or three inputs simultaneously, but you'll also have to deal with the vagaries of the PC and the Windows operating system. If this kind of talk excites you, check out Nobeltec; the company builds a nice PCbased radar and navigation package, including a $1,900 wireless display that'll let you watch the radar screen from anywhere on board. Invest in a marine-grade laptop if you take this route, though, a garden-variety model probably won't last very long at sea. The cost of the laptop ($2,500 or more), the nav software and the radar scanner will probably be higher than that of a very nice black-box system, however. But if you need a PC onboard anyway, it's a way to go.

So what's the bottom line? First, radar comes in very handy, and nowadays there's no reason not to have one. Second, buy at least a 4-kW set with the biggest scanner that will fit on your boat. Third, the new multifunction black-box systems are very cool, and let you add more stuff every year-and you know how much you like doing that. One of them would be my choice. Fourth, the new LCD displays are hard to beat, and this is coming from a CRT curmudgeon. Fifth, buy the biggest display you can. Finally, if you need a PC onboard anyway, make it do double-duty by building a radar and nav system around it.

Oh, and don't forget to keep a lookout for passing ships.