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Browser Screensaver

Radar Screensaver

A full radar console — a rotating sweep over range rings and a bearing scale, contacts that flare as the beam crosses them and fade in the seconds after, and live track readouts down the sides.

Press F for fullscreen, Esc to exit.

What the radar screensaver is

The detail that makes a sweep look like a sweep is that the whole picture is painted by the beam and then left to decay. A contact is only lit when the beam has just passed over it, and the same is true of the receiver noise, the sea clutter and the weather cells around it. Versions that draw fixed dots with a line spinning over them never look right.

Over that decaying video sits a second layer that does not fade: track symbols, velocity leaders, one history dot per scan, and a designation cursor that steps from contact to contact with its bearing, range, altitude and speed. A real console composites exactly those two registers, and the contrast between them is most of what you are looking at.

  • A control-room or command-centre look for a set or a stream
  • A background for a game night or a themed event
  • An idle display with steady, predictable motion

Radar screen online with a live sweep

A bearing tag rides the beam and the corner blocks hold a live track table, so the screen always has something changing on it even when no contact is lit.

The colour control takes any hex value and repaints everything at once — graticule, sweep, returns and readouts. Amber gives an older scope, cyan a more modern one, and the default green is the one everyone pictures.

How to run the radar screensaver full screen

Press the fullscreen button on the player, or the F key. Escape brings you back to the page. On a desktop browser F11 does the same job and hides the browser’s own toolbars as well, which is what you want on a display that is going to be left running.

Everything you change in the settings is written into the address bar as you change it, so the version you have set up is a link. Bookmark it, or send it to whoever is running the screen. Space pauses and resumes at any time.

Questions

Is this showing real radar data?

No. The contacts, the weather cells and every number in the readouts are generated in the page. It is a screensaver, and a web page has no way to see actual radar returns.

Can I change the colour?

Yes — the scope colour field takes any hex value and applies to the rings, the sweep and the contacts together.

Does the sweep speed affect anything else?

It sets the rotation rate, and the phosphor decay is scaled to match it, so the trail always dies at the same point in the revolution however fast the antenna is turning. The scan rate in the corner readout follows it too.

Is the radar screensaver free?

Yes — free, with no account, no download, no watermark and no time limit. It is a web page, so it runs on anything with a modern browser.

How do I stop it or exit fullscreen?

Press Escape to leave fullscreen, or F to toggle it. Space pauses the animation without leaving the page. If you used F11 to hide the browser toolbars, press F11 to bring them back.