Posts Tagged ‘VHF Radios’
Busy weekend!
This past weekend found me and a friend of mine on snowmobiles traveling through the woods on well groomed trails for a jaunt of about 160 miles. Trails were beautiful, snow was plentiful, temperature was incredible, and the day was super! There was a time that I thought it might be fun to call home to bring everyone up to speed on our trip and found that for nearly the entire trip we had no cell signal. How similar, I thought, to one being out at sea without any means of communication. Now, it really probably doesn’t matter much if everything is going ok, but what if it wasn’t? That measly little investment made in a hand held VHF marine radio would be prove invaluable. VHF Radios have really come down in price and are still probably the single most important piece of equipment you can have on board. Put it on the top of your “to do” list for this next boating season!
Why add a VHF Radio if it isn’t required?
True – VHF radios are not required in many areas of the world – and particularly if your boat happened to be less than 65.6 feet long. Does this meat that you should not put one on board? Certainly not!! Fact is, many boaters find they require 2 on board – one VHF Marine Radio for monitoring communication between them and the coast guard with regard to the weather and another (usually a hand held VHF Marine Radio) to be used in the event of an emergency requiring the evacuation of the ship. Sure is nice to know that there are waterproof hand held marine radios available so even though you may be bobbing around in a raft somewhere, you’ll be safe and you’ll be able to communicate with the Coast Guard to gain assistance.
Major differences between fixed and hand held…
When selecting which radio is the right one for you, you must consider the limitations of each unit. In today’s world, the use of microprocessors and integrated circuits make it possible to achieve amazing results with even the smallest of units. Maximum transmit power and non availability of digital selective calling may be the only two main factors that will come up on the short end when comparing a fixed VHF Marine Radio to a hand held VHF Marine Radio. Other than that all of the VHF Radios operate on all allowable transmit and receive channels – including all NOAA Weather Channels.