I've finally succeeded in capturing our new Simrad/Lowrance BR24 Broadband radar in screenshots that show what it can do in a way that can be understood without needing to know the local circumstances.Here is a link to the Flickr set that shows them all.
The first picture shows the largest range that showed useful information. Our antenna was about 8 m up in the air. Still, it showed echos 10 to 15 nautical miles away. Mind you, these were large built up areas (small towns). The dikes themselves at 2-15 nm did not show up. Although not impressive, it does show that the range is there. Notice that there were a number of smaller sailing yachts (motor yachts don't tend to use this lake in F5-6 winds) but that these don't show up reliably at this range. In my experience, those do show up with a 'normal' magnetron based 4 KW radome radar. Also the coast and dikes would show up.
The second picture shows the close up detail that is very, very impressive! Going from immediately north to south-east of the center location you see a range of dots and echos stretching from the land shown on the chart into the water. This is a series of metal piles that large ships can moor up to when waiting for the lock. The echos stretching to the land are walkways so that people can load/unload.To the W @180m to NW @100m you can see the echos of the buildings right on top of the gray building area shown on the chart.
Across the water you can see the mooring wall with the dike behind it. This is where BB shines with it's great range resolution and ability to separate objects behind other objects.
To the right is a Google Map view of the same area.
On all images you can see that man-made objects, in particular heavy or conductive matter such as metal, show up much better than the softer areas (earthen dikes, trees), especially further off.
If you have any questions regarding the objects or views that I have, please comment and I will expand this entry accordingly.
