Flashback forum
Question: 2009-11-24
Will all boats that are in the Baltic Sea come up on the radar screen on a Finlandboat, fishing boats, military boats, cargo vessels, pleasure boats, barges, submarines?
How large must surface/boatbe to be picked up by a radar and caught on the screen at a Finlandsboat?
Answer: Starvbid
All who have their transponders turned on are visible on the radar.
Question;
If we play with the idea that the military has a naval exercise (playing war) or are just breathing and fanning their newly waxed boats in and around where Finlandsboats are passing:
Can the MV Estonia captain with manning check the radar on his Finlandsboat where all military boats are, do they come up on his radar screen?
Can MS Estonia captain follow throughout the military naval exercises on his radar screen?
Answers, Starvi;
As long as the military boats have their transponders on they can. I do not know if MV Estonia was equipped with surveillance radar, without them you see nothing that does not have a powered transponder.
Answers, Lodenrock;
At the time of the sinking of the MV Estonia the transponder system (AIS) was not developed. Small vessel radar echoes can disappear in a "seaclutter" (waves give radar echoes that interfere with the smaller echoes).