Okay. I expect you will all excoriate me and run me through the coals now as you all seem firm proponents of radar, and am not saying you should not have one; However, any electronic device should only be used as an assistance, an additional tool to have. After all, what if a lightning strike or some big battery problem knocks out all your electronics? What then?
Back in the 1960's when I was a newbie learning from the old salts of the day, very few pleasure vessels power or sail were equiped with radar. No one had gps. No one had a chart-plotter. We learned to stand watch by "standing" and getting up out of the cockpit and viewing the horizon from the mast where your eye is higher above the horizon. You cannot see well from behind a dodger down in the cockpit, especially if there are seas, or if your eyes are being blinded by lights left on down below. If you don't like getting wet or feeling cold then buy better gear to wear or take up a different sport.
And your night vision will be blinded and compromised from staring at a screen. Expecting to be able to see anything in the darkness after looking at anything lighted is foolish. Back then, the only thing in the cockpit with a light was the binnacle, and that was only very dimly lit. Now days I see folks with big colorful brightly-lit chartplotters mounted to their binnacles!
I always kept electronics down below where they are dry and unable to blind the night watch. Always held a paper chart on deck too and nowdays many folks do not even carry paper charts for their itinerary.
Am an old-school proponet of dark decks when standing watch. And a firm believer in getting up and looking around frequently. Have sailed many miles for many years in all conditions with no radar. Am not saying don't get one, but am suggesting it should not be relied on to the sacrifice of basic watch-standing prinicples.