Simrad Marine Radars & Autopilots

Simrad Marine Radar and Autopilots Resources and Information

Browse PartsVu.com’s extensive selection of marine radars and autopilots from Simrad. Use these helpful marine navigation products to make your next trip out on the water a breeze. Marine radars are indispensable for emergency situations, while boat autopilot systems help free you up while navigating uncertain waters. 

Looking for more marine products? Check out our selection of Boat Accessories, Parts, and Products, or Boating Electronics and Navigation. Or browse our broader selection of marine radars and autopilots.

Simrad Marine Radars and Autopilots FAQs

What makes the Simrad Open Array Radar so unique?

From the people who brought you the world’s first recreational Pulse Compression radars, now comes the new HALO 2000 and 3000 series. The powerful open array radars offer superior range, intelligent modes, and class-leading ease of use.

ZoneTrack™

Automatically detects and tracks radar targets in a designated area

VelocityTrack™

Instantly identifies and checks every radar target, and colour codes for easy viewing

Dangerous Target Alert 

Alerts to the range, bearing, and heading of other vessels relative to your own

Preset User Modes

Harbour, Offshore, Weather, and Bird Modes optimise radar settings for specific situations

Target Tracking

Simultaneous short, mid, and long-range detection of multiple objects with tracking history

Watch Target 

Allows the manual selection of specific targets that are then tracked on the radar PPI

The 2000 and 3000 series really step it up in terms of power, offering 2x and 5x the wattage respectively. That translates to a vastly improved range and best-ever levels of clarity both near and far. Unlike traditional Magnetron radars, HALO’s full power is ready when you are. HALO 2000 and 3000 are ready instantly from standby mode, and just 16-25 seconds from a cold start. That’s the benefit of solid state, pulse compression technology.

ZoneTrack™ brings the best of professional boating technology to recreational users, allowing them to automatically track up to 50 vessels within a defined area, providing course and speed information to aid situational awareness.

HALO’s Dangerous Target Alerts graphically highlight range, bearing and heading of other vessels relative to yours. VelocityTrack™ shows targets colour-coded so you can identify potential threats at a glance. Because, when it comes to safety, situational awareness is everything.

We believe that radar is a core safety feature of any ocean-going vessel. That’s why we’ve endeavoured to make our HALO 2000 and 3000 series as user-friendly as possible. HALO’s Preset Modes are designed to be operated and understood by even the newest boaters, with maximum ease and minimal hassle.

Both HALO 2000 and 3000 series feature powerful Bird modes that allow sportfishing enthusiasts to locate flocks of birds at distance, leading you to the richest fishing holes in your area. HALO 3000 casts its beam wider than ever before. The new Bird+ Mode focuses the radar’s full 130 watts power on finding birds, detecting flocks as far as 8nm away. That’s truly game-changing power.

What are Simrad marine autopilots?

The current range of Simrad autopilots represents over 70 years of experience and development. With a wide range of solutions to suit any vessel type and length, you can build your system one component at a time, or start by choosing one of our autopilot core packs.

Designing your ideal autopilot system is straightforward, as the steering system on your boat determines most of your choices. After that, you can work through the drive selection process. Choice of accessories, such as remote controllers and compasses, can be made after the core components.

Compensating for wind and tide, a Simrad autopilot frees you from constant course corrections when you're busy trawling for game fish, planning your next destination, or just cruising. Set waypoints simply by tapping where you want to go on-screen, and your autopilot will take you there.

What is SteadySteer?

Enjoy increased convenience without sacrificing safety with SteadySteer - a new functionality for autopilot systems that enables immediate, manual control of a vessel through turns without disengaging the autopilot. Coming out of turns, SteadySteer automatically reengages the autopilot once a new heading is established – no key-presses required.

What are the features of the HALO Dome Radar?

ZoneTrack is an automatic radar target tracking feature that can detect and track radar targets in a designated area (Zone) of the radar PPI. It replaces the former GuardZone feature.

The feature is ideal for monitoring other vessels in open water and offshore voyages and helps decision-making around collision avoidance. ZoneTrack will automatically acquire and track radar targets within one or two user-specified “Zones”.

A zone can be either a segment or a circle shape. The size and shape of a zone can be adjusted in the Radar menu.

Provides instant visual feedback on whether targets are approaching (A), stationary (red) or moving away (C ).

Using the Doppler effect, this feature automatically checks every target seen by your radar; there is no need to select individual targets manually and no limit to the number of targets on screen at one time.

Simple colour coding helps distinguish target status and helps further improve situational awareness.

A significant safety and situational awareness tool showing the range, graphical bearing and heading of another vessel relative to your boat.

The alert appears in a pop-up window in the bottom left of the screen and highlights:

A = a searchlight icon indicating the direction of target relative to your boat, and

B = a target vessel icon showing the course of the other vessel.

The alert is activated via dangerous target parameters in Settings>Vessels>Vessels and Tracked Targets.

Preset user modes quickly set the radar up for specific situations. Harbour, Offshore, Weather and Bird modes optimise radar settings to give you the information you need.

For example, in Harbour mode, where there is a lot of traffic, settings are optimised for highspeed scanning to track heavy vessel traffic.

There is also a Custom mode, where any of the settings in the radar can be changed and saved as a presets.

Moving Radar MARPA and AIS targets feature a graduated trail (A) showing the vessels past position history on the radar PPI.

The duration of a trail (history) is set via a selection under Settings > Vessels.

“Watch target” is an improvement over the MARPA “Acquire target” feature and allows the manual selection of specific radar targets that are then tracked on the radar PPI.

Selecting the “Watch target” option in the radar menu (A), highlights the target.

Viewing details of the tracked target (B) - select a target, then from the menu, select “Target details”.

What is a Simrad NAC autopilot computer? 

The current range of Simrad autopilots represents over 70 years of experience and development. With a wide range of solutions to suit any vessel type and length, you can build your system one component at a time, or start by choosing one of our autopilot core packs.

Designing your ideal autopilot system is straightforward, as the steering system on your boat determines most of your choices. After that, you can work through the drive selection process. Choice of accessories, such as remote controllers and compasses, can be made after the core components.

The NAC Autopilot Computers are the brains behind the Simrad autopilot system.

They contain the electronics needed to operate a hydraulic steering pump or mechanical drive unit, while also interfacing with other components including heading sensors and rudder feedback units. 

Below are the differences between the NAC 1, NAC-2, and NAC-3.

NAC-1 Autopilot Computer

• The NAC-1 is designed for boats up to 10 meters (33 ft) in length and is suitable for low-current pumps.
• Controls: MFD and WR10 only.
• 12 V power supply
• 8 amps continuous / 16 amps
• Connections: Pre-terminated cables
• Rudder feedback: Variable voltage or NMEA 2000

NAC-2 Autopilot Computer

• The NAC-2 is designed for boats up to 10 meters (33 ft) in length and is suitable for low-current pumps, mechanical drive units, and solenoid valves.
• Controls: AP44/48/MFD/OP12/WR10
• 12/24 V power supply
• 8 amps continuous / 16 amps peak
• Connections: Pre-terminated cables
• Rudder feedback: Variable voltage or NMEA 2000

NAC-3 Autopilot Computer

• The NAC-3 is designed for boats 10 meters (33 ft) or greater in length and is rated to operate high-current pumps, mechanical drive units, and solenoid valves.
• Controls: AP44/48/MFD/OP12/OP10
• 30 amps continuous / 50 amps peak
• Connections: Screw terminals
• S35, R3000x, S9, JS10 remote control
• Rudder feedback: Variable frequency (RF300) or NMEA 2000