That's how old I am.

Anyway, a friend of mine has the Tri-Lens on his boat and I agree it gives a very consistent, strong signal. When we bought our boat it had one of them there tubular gizmos attached to one of the upper shrouds. I had heard the were mostly decorative and when one of the hose clamps that mounted the sucker snagged my main halyard and wouldn't let go I went up and cut off the offending member.

It wasn't my plan to initiate (another) thread on various types of reflectors. My observation was that after looking at a bunch of boats on radar this summer it seems to me that lots of power boats could benefit from having a reflector but the only ones I see with them are some the commercial fisherman who have permanent ones up in the structure that holds their outriggers.