[TG] [TG11] Axiom 12 can't find Radome

[Tom - Raymarine - Moderator]

Hello Vettepro,

Quote:The only difference is that the drain line is now connected to one of the engine blocks whereas before it was not yet connected.

Have you tried disconnecting that drain line again?
You should not make extra connections between your DC system and a sea earth, that can cause a range of problems including a ground loop that may introduce noise rather than reduce it - you could also cause an electrolysis problem, depending on what other pre-existing connections there are on the boat. If you are going to connect your product drain wires/grounding points to a sea earth instead of simply to battery negative as would be more common, it needs to be a single, dedicated RF ground point for all of the electronics, not separated ones for each.

Quote:Is there a sequence to be followed when firing up the MFD and radar? Do I let the MFD fully boot up before powering the radar or does it matter?
I think it "sort of" sees the radar as it displays the message "4KW 18" Digital Radome (-20158) Connecting to Radar" before timing out and telling me that no Radar was found.

No, there's no special sequence except for Quantum radars running older software, where they could settle in a sleep mode if left powered for a long period with the MFD off (for anyone else reading this.) You can power your radar and display in any order.

The fact that the radar is listed as a source in the radar page but the connection times-out suggests to me one of two things:

1. Unreliable network connection. Possibly that new earth connection is exacerbating noise rather than abating it, or you have a poor network connection somewhere, but the 'announcement' of the radar service on the network requires much less bandwidth and less network reliability than the subsequent communications to initiate transmission and send the radar video.
2. A voltage drop. That symptom of the radar being available only intermittently and 'disappearing' as soon as you try to start the radar sounds very like a power supply issue. When the radar's in Sleep mode it draws very little current, but each step from there to Standby and then Transmit draws progressively more current and
   therefore will pull down the supply voltage more. If that drop is low enough, the radar's processor won't be able to run and it will stop being able to communicate with the display.
   

Of the two, from my experience and from the symptoms you describe I would say power is much more likely.

Quote:Should the radome need to be sent in for service, what is the procedure? Do I need to take it to a local dealer or can I send it in directly?

It doesn't sound at this stage as if the radar's faulty, but if it were then you could get it back either to the dealer you bought it from, or your nearest Service dealer (tick 'Certified Installation' at https://www.raymarine.com/buy/find-a-dealer.html) or our own service centres (select 'Book a repair' at https://www.raymarine.com/view/index-id=779.html.)

Regards,
Tom