SAM Electronics of Den Oever is working closely with fishermen to deliver exactly what they want - such as an ARPA (Automatic Radar Plotting Aid) radar able to track other ships for the full range of the set.

Sales engineer Harold Munsterman says: "With our ARPA radars, fishermen wanted to be able to acquire and track targets at more than 20 miles range. This is not needed for a merchant vessel as ARPA radar for them is a collision avoidance tool and that sort of range is not needed.

"For fishermen, the further away they can track the better."

The radar set's extra ARPA capability was developed when technicians from STN Atlas, parent company of SAM Electronics, came to Den Oever to talk to fishermen who explained to them what they needed and why.

"Once the technical teams understood what was wanted, this feature was made available and ARPA tracking now extends to the full range of the radar, " says Harold Munsterman.

The radars have 15 and 28 in. TFT screens.

SAM's radars are designed for AIS (Automatic Identification System), which is not mandatory for fishing vessels until 2007. Some beamers have already fitted AIS voluntarily, allowing them to see and identify vessels on their screens.

"They love it. They can see the Navy or the customs patrols coming - especially in the German Bight and off the English coast. But the Navy sometimes turns their AIS off so they can't be identified.

"They aren't supposed to be able to do this, but they do, " says Harold Munsterman.

This fishing knowledge became available to STN Atlas when Den Oever electronics company Botech ceased trading last year.

Five staff joined STN Atlas and Harold Munsterman says:

"The Botech staff are the fishing specialists and we had been supplying a lot of equipment to STN Atlas.

"They had a lot of experience in the merchant shipping sector and they saw, that with the demise of Botech, they could lose their fishing industry connections, so they took us over."

The five former Botech staff now run the SAM Electronics branch in Den Oever as part of the worldwide SAM Electronics company, selling and repairing equipment for fishing in the north of Holland.

SAM has seen how the Den Oever team has been working with fishing and has been encouraging its other branches to do the same.

A second company branch is based at Lauwersoog, where it looks after the shrimp fleet. It has supplied many newgeneration vessels built in the last two years.

"Ninety % of what we have been doing is supplying new vessels. We supplied both UK-64 and TX-19 from Hoekman Shipbuilding in Urk and we will be supplying the latest beamer from Maaskant along with Holland Nautic."

SAM Electronics manufactures also VHF, MF and HF radio equipment.

Iridium equipment is also made and marketed under the Debeg name.

"We are also distributors for GMC, a Japanese company with its own range of plotters, echo sounders and sonars, as well as manufacturing STN Atlas' OEM products, " Harold Munsterman tells FNI.

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Radar tracks for the full range