From the point of view of the Phantom Navs' Union (engage them at your Peril, oh worthless scum!!), the early F3 was worse than the Phantom. We struggled mightily to get a decent air picture. A good, experienced ex-Phantom nav could usually get something workable out of the F3 kit; sometimes using exotic radar modes, at other times swearing and thumping seemed to work. All this was at the expense of navigating and system management.
Fortunately, being generally average I got crewed with experienced navs, but happened to be quite good at nav and systems, so it all worked out pretty well for me. The Stage 1 radar was the first step which produced something decent.
Geehovah's our expert here, of course