Recomendations for hand held VHF radio?

[Mark42]

I am looking at various hand held VHF radios by Uniden and Icom in the iboats Marine Store. Can anyone give a recomendation for one of these units? Do they work well? Sound clear? What about the floating models, are they worth it?

Thanks!

Mark

 

[tommays]

Re: Recomendations for hand held VHF radio?

Mark

In the peconic bay area the towers are very high so i think any good handheld would work

In inland areas it might only go boat to boat



Tommays

 

[Mark42]

Re: Recomendations for hand held VHF radio?

Tommays,

Do these things still sound like CB radios from the 70's or are things better now?

Keep an eye out for me in my '85 Bayliner. I plan on being there the last two weeks of August. I'm easy to find... Always the smallest boat on the bay.

 

[tommays]

Re: Recomendations for hand held VHF radio?

There kind of like a BAD cell phone BUT the CG is on 16 when you really need it


I like the red panic button on my dashmount unit with the connection to the GPS it will broadcast my location if all i can do is press it



Tommays

 

[craig240DA]

Re: Recomendations for hand held VHF radio?

There kind of like a BAD cell phone BUT the CG is on 16 when you really need it


I like the red panic button on my dashmount unit with the connection to the GPS it will broadcast my location if all i can do is press it



Tommays

I always point that out to everyone on board, too. Great feature. I wish I could test it somehow without sending out the troops.

 

[miswirvin]

Re: Recomendations for hand held VHF radio?

ICOM is one of the best radio's on the market period! There 5watt total power so the range is about 5 miles. As long as you don't go offshore, there fine. Most vhf's come with a standard waterprofing of 1m for 30min. alot of them flot too. The ICM34 is a great unit and it's around $169 usually.

 

[miswirvin]

Re: Recomendations for hand held VHF radio?

One feature I would reccomend is to make sure that it can take akeline batt. Just ic case you forget to charge it before you go or in a emergency. That feature can be priceless! If you need one let me know.

 

[miswirvin]

Re: Recomendations for hand held VHF radio?

The red panic button is a DSC (Digital Selective Call) feature that will only work when you register your radio and obtain a mmsi #. Very cool feature though.