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Requirements
The plugin has very few hard requirements nowadays, but the functionality does increase with more sensors. Let's start with a minimal setup and grow this step by step, and see what functionality is enabled by these steps.
It won't come as a surprise to you that you need a Navico Broadband scanner. If you buy new we recommend the 4G as it is only a little more expensive than a 3G, and it is significantly better in radar performance.
If you buy secondhand make sure the radar is still working. Like all radome antennas they are susceptible to moisture and not all of them will live to be 20 years old! In fact the low power consumption may actually make this worse as they don't 'heat up'.
This is an interface box that injects NMEA 2000 (RI10) or NMEA 0183 (RI11) compass heading and adds it to the radar data stream. An RI box is also needed to satisfy EU RFI (Radio Frequency Interference) standards. It may also help with reducing the risk of damage from thunderstorms.
The Navico chartplotters require this for radar overlay, but the plugin does not.
The plugin requires a compass heading to be able to show the radar image in stabilized, COG up or North up mode. If there is no compass heading it will just show the radar image as received from the scanner, and the image will not be correct during turns or heavy sea conditions that induce yaw.
The higher the compass rate the better the picture will be in difficult circumstances. Use of an RI-10/11 will improve the picture as well, as the heading in use at the moment of creating the spoke (a ray of radar data in a particular direction) is stored with the data.
The plugin requires a GNSS location (usually GPS) to be able to draw the radar image over the chart (''overlay''). By default it also requires a compass heading, as COG is not useful at low speeds. There is a setting that allows the use of COG for overlay, but it does mean that the radar is not useful at anchor or other zero/low speed situations.