Its an interesting point Punto. I am not SAR but a few ARAs in the past. I generally aimed the RADAR slightly below the horizon, maybe 3 degrees nose down, turned the gain to full, always in WX mode, and then backed off the gain to remove the sea clutter, leaving (what I believed) to be the hard bits behind.
I recall most people I flew with did mostly the same procedure. Although an handful would obsess about which mode they wanted. I think "Search" modes featured a lot in these discussions, but if in Command, I always resolutely insisted on the WX mode and the technique I have described.
Having written this, and now as we review this accident, it seems bizarre that we have not formally mandated an exact technique for setting the RADAR up. (Maybe in some other organisations they have).
Anyone have any other techniques they would like to share or has anyone been subjected to a "Mandatory" setup.
In fact I change my story a bit having thought about it. What I did was never relied on the angle of dangle indication. I would turn the gain full up, turn the head down until I had total sea clutter, or in calm, targets crystal clear where I expected them to be. Then I backed off the gain until the sea just about disappeared. Funny what comes back when you read what you wrote previously. Nope, I never used the angle of dangle thingy.