Tips for acquiring Targets with Radar?

I understand that the Sapphire is a rather narrow ranged little Radar, but usually I have trouble acquiring a target that I can visually identify with enough player zoom and some squinting but sometimes they just don't show up on Radar.

One of the stranger aircraft I had issues targeting with the radar is one of those Tupolev long range bombers in the Target Practice mission. I'm unsure whether or not it was the case that the bomber was moving slowly, but even turning on the LST switch didn't increase my chances of targeting it. It's an enormous aircraft that I should have no trouble targeting in the first place. Am I just Bad? Any other tips on target acquisition with the Radar?

Look up, be high, scan and shift.

The scan volume is -1.5 to +17.5 best case scenario. The dead center of the volume is 15 km at 8.5 degrees up. That's a 2220m relative altitude. Usual controlled intercept is done 1,000-1,500 stepped down.

Being close to the ground ruins range performance regardless of filter settings. Despite being in volume you won't get returns out to maximum range as own altitude gets low, 3km, 1km, 500m etc.. (at least with C-17 I found that actually not true, things change in patches. I was holding contact >20km despite being 50m over the ocean).

LST doesn't matter for scanning detection but may be relevant when switching over to auto tracking.

Trailing C-17, 2000m step down: Own 2km, T 4km. Lost detection at ~23km at lowest filter, medium and unfiltered retained contact to 30km. Target in volume in all cases.

Reduce to 1km/3km, same test. At 15km distance no contact without lowest filter. Medium and normal are unable. Ran under at medium filter without contact until T out of volume. Climbed and medium filter was OK contact slightly more than 1km from surface.

Couldn't find a situation where medium and high filter differed. It sort of looks like in middle cases that medium filter updates more rapidly than unfiltered.

If you're searching bits of the sky I recommend doing so in chunks with 15-20 degree changes of heading sharply and then constant headings for several sweeps. Real manuals say 15sec but that's a long time with DCS. If your chunk hasn't detected in 3-5 sec then it's not going to. Yank, pause, yank pause. Doing it in 15 degree chunks allows overlap between stares to avoid missing anything going across the other way.

The 1.5 degree below horizon isn't much. That's a 1:45 ratio or 785m over the entire 30km reach. That covers rounding error when GCI says target is at 8km but it's really at 7.6. You want a whole number km or two below estimated target height.

I tried target practice, easy and the most troublesome part about the Tu-142s is they start rather close and high. I started to lose them above volume due to the vertical difference. I zoomed to 6-6.5km and he stood out easily once pointed roughly at him.

Thank you very much for the advice! I had finally managed to get a lock (and a Radar Missile) onto the Tu-142 in the Target practice mission. Turning on Markers and setting Distance readouts into Kilometers really helped with getting the hang of the Radar. Sometimes the radar's readouts are rather unhelpful compared to modern systems; especially when it comes to the radar displaying radar signatures in front of you. But, the more accurate range readouts and simple to use missile launch system does make things easier once you lock on.