Marine radio options

[botelerr]

WM has ICOM 32 hand held vhs for $89 this week,, Anyone have experience or report? I'm on the Mississippi Rvier ,so miles of reach are not as important as ease of install. Other option is mounited with atenna etc.. twice the cost and ten times the work,, but I guess five times the range?
CP19 -215
Rob

[NateD]

It all depends on what your expected use will be and what your priorities are. When I was in the market for a hand held last year, here are the things I considered.

Waterproof - When single handing in rough weather I wanted to clip the radio onto my vest in case I go in and can't get back to the boat, so being waterproof was a must. I found that there are varying degrees of "water proof" or "water resistant". When comparing different radios, find out what their JIS/IPX rating is. These sites tell you what the rating means: http://www.lakemartin.com/BoatingWaterproofSpecs.asp   and     http://hy-com.com/jis.htm

Size - If it is going to be clipped to my vest when I am single handing in rough weather, I didn't want some huge heavy thing getting in my way. Hand held units can range from mid-size cell phone size to the size of an average brick. I compromised and got a mid-sized one mostly for larger buttons.

Batteries - All of the electronic accessories on my boat run on AA batteries, so I can always scavenge batteries out of the camera to use in the GPS, or out of the GPS for the iPod speakers (gotta have priorities ya know). I was initially looking for a radio with a built in battery that would use AA as backup. I ended up compromising on this and got a radio with a removable battery pack and 2 packs came with the radio. So far it hasn't been a problem. If I don't transmit, a single battery pack lasts 30-40 hours.

Button/Screen Size - Small buttons = hard to use. I also wanted back lit buttons to make it easier to use in the dark.

The least expensive model I found that met my criteria (except for the battery thing), was the Uniden MHS 350: http://www.amazon.com/Uniden-Handheld-Marine-2-Way-Radio/dp/tech-data/B0002Q7DWA/ref=de_a_smtd. I've only had it in service for about 3 months this summer, but so far I like it. The biggest downside so far is it gets NO weather report reception down in the cabin. I was able to talk to other nearby boats over VHF from inside the cabin, but I guess the weather stations are too far away, too weak, or completely blocked by the cabin. While the VHF worked, it was much weaker than sitting in the cockpit. If you plan to use it from within the cabin frequently, you might want to consider an antenna or a wired model. Even if I had a built in model, I would still want a hand held as backup. If the house battery dies (shorts out, tips over in a knockdown, inadvertently rundown, wires fry), or if there is damage to your masthead antenna, antenna cable, or antenna connections, the built in would be pretty worthless.

[Bob Condon]

ANother option is to have the antennae on the mast and have a hand held that you can plug into the antennae
then you get the distance. It is always line of site for transmission so the mast head is the best place. You can
simply make/buy an L bracket, drill and tap it by hand and mount the antennae....

Bob Condon

[Craig Weis]

Shakespeare VHS antenna at masthead provides line-of-site distance. At 25 foot above the waterline the masthead location provides about 12 miles radius.  Additionally a Davis anchor light and a 'found in the trash at the boatyard' wind indicator arrow mounted on a piece of teak I screwed into the masthead and note the block for the spinnaker halyard. I use self tapping 'tec' screws with rubber gasket and washer. About 13 cents a piece at the ACE hardware store.

Be sure the coaxial cable exits out the mast's tube under the plug-in casting of the masthead. Any self tapping screws [shown] going into the masthead casting must not interfere with the two pulleys for the halyards. That little blue line and block is for my decorative flags and 'tacs' to the stern pulpit.

Radio installation. Used the same screws that hold down the sliding hatch [companigion way]. Note that most of the wiring was fished up between the outside of the cabin [bulkhead] wall and the XL liner for a cleaner look. Includes the antenna coaxial wire. Radio mic holder is using an existing screw as well.

Port side reused these screws to hold the fire bottle. Had an old barometer laying around put that on the bulkhead as well.
Note the am/fm/CD under the lip of the XL liner.

skip.

[botelerr]

Thanks Skip,, this looks like a great option , and it keeps me off the streets for several days..Rob

[kahpho]

Hi Rob,

I looked for information on the ICOM 32 but it seems to be a discontinued model. The manual is still available on the ICOM site but the file requires a Corel program I don't have (what, no pdf?). That said, just about any major brand handheld at that price is a pretty good deal. There isn't likely to be much difference in features between radios at that price point. Should work fine for river use (or anywhere) if you can see where you're trying to call (bridge, marina, other boat).

As others have mentioned, it is an option to connect a handheld to a mast head antenna for greater line-of-site range. Most handhelds now seem to have SMA type antenna connectors while a mast mount antenna lead will likely be PL-259 connector. So, an adapter would be needed. These are easy enough to come by for around $15 but be aware, SMA is small, PL-259 is kind'a big relatively speaking. Not real mechanically robust but doable if your careful with it.

I work with radios in my day job and my preference is a fixed mount radio for a number of reasons. But, I've purchased a handheld recently for my boat because the price was a good deal and I figure it will suit my needs for a year or two.

mel