Posted by Capt Rick (199.46.200.230) on July 26, 2003 at 07:46:09:
Recently sent my 4 yr old Raytheon monochrome HSB radar and chartplotter in for HW/SW upgrade to HSB2. This basically replaces all the electronics except the display and upgrades SW to latest version. The big advantage is to the chartplotter. You get much faster redraw speed, better graphics and text. The radar adds MARPA target tracking but you need to upgrade the standard electronic compass to the fluxgate version-next project. You don't get radar-chart overlay as that's only with color. It cost $220+shipping for each unit and took 2 weeks. I think it get's you 80% the advantages of the new color units at 10% the cost. The mono display cost has dropped almost 50% over 4 years. Hopefully the color display will drop similarly over the next 4 years.
Rick