garmin 18 fantom radome

[belladonna]

Does anyone own and/or have any experience with the relatively new Garmin 18 Pantom radome? I want to buy one, actually I'm trying to talk my wife into buying me one for Christmas (yeah right), and everyone that sells them is sticking with the $1,999 price. Any advice and/or recommendations will be appreciated. Merry Christmas to all and let's hope 2021 will be better than 2020!! Thanx, Jim

[Bob_A]

Jim,

I am in the process of installing the Garmen Fanton 18 right now. Sorry I cant tell you how well it works and how much we like it but I'd be happy to follow up in a month or so. I can tell you that the new Garmen was made to fit the existing Raymarine radar dome mounting bracket (perfect fit) so thats a win.
The network cable end down and into the boat must be cut off. The power and network cables I fed through the existing mast grommet by reaming it out somewhat. Needless to say the mast is off right now as part of a complete rewiring / cabling and inspection etc.
Interested to know if you indeed got one.

[belladonna]

Hello Bob - Thanx for your reply. Don't know if you've noticed or not but our hull numbers are only 5 numbers apart, 363 vs. 368. Anyway I'm receiving my Garmin 18 Fantom radome this coming week, the units have been backorders which hopefully means they are great units. I installed a Kato Marine radar pole on my transom so that's where I will be mounting it as I didn't want to unstep my mast. Please keep in touch and let me know how the radar is performing and I'll do the same. My Fantom will feed into my 12" Garmin chart-plotter at the helm.
Thanx, Jim