Marine Radios

What brands/types of handheld marine radios are you using when sailing on your cats? We recently had a thread going on the pros and cons of cell phones vs. marine radios and pretty much exhaused that topic, but never got around to discussing which are the best radios for our type of use.

I know sailors who are using them on lakes, bays, oceans, etc. and hear stories about some not working well in areas with lots of physical obstruction such as promintories and mountains. Others seem to have all the luck and reach whomever they want. What's the consensus?

White Cat

If I was to buy one today Unidien Voyager has a small but powerful hand held I would want somthing small that would stow easily in a pocket and waterproof and that scans NOAA alerts.

Ciao,

Todd

I use a Uniden HH940, an older model that was nice and small and completely waterproof, although it only had 1 Watt of power. All newer ones are 1Watt/5 Watt...which extends your range a little (line of sight based on the height of the antenna is the biggest factor).

Here I go thinking again,

How feasible would it be to extend the range of a hand held raido by adding a antenna to the top of your mast?

I know to alot of people this would be a moot point on account of most people sailing on lakes and not needing the range but to the few who venture way out (one day myself included) it might be better to have it and not need than need and not have it.

I guess the meat and potatoes of the post is: Would there be anything (in the mast of a 16) stoping you/me from running a cable through the mast to facilitate adding an antenna for a raido?

Suggestions? Ideas?

Just keeping the mental gears turning,

Chris

Oh man! That is dangerous!

I am not a proponent of drilling unneeded holes in your mast (to house the cable), but if you had a non-comptip mast, its pretty much hollow except at the very top and very bottom, where a foam plug exists. Comptips would be much more difficult as they are, I believed, filled with foam. In otherwords, its doable...I just don't know how adviseable.

From the radio standpoint, there are handhelds whose antennas can come off and be replaced with connectors to fixed antennas.

Remember, the Coast Guard mans really BIG antennas that have a "line of site" pretty much as far as you might go out on a beach cat. You just may not be able to have as great a range boat to boat.

i understand that water getting in the mast is a concern when capsized but how much water could seep in through one 1/4 inch hole at the head of the mast (if the hole at the foot gets wet your in big trouble anyway)? i think it would be kinda nice to have that extra range if it would work. the antenna on my west-marine hand-held does screw off by a coax connection so adding an external antenna would not be difficult, but would the radio be able to pull such a large antenna? if it would I think it would be great to have the advantage of being able to readily communicate with other boats in the vicinity instead of only with the coast guard. I have had two icom handhelds in the past four years and both of them went bad in about a year, but my west marine has done great for the past two years and spends much of the time when it is not wet riding around in the seat of my hot truck if i had the choice i would go with the cheaper option which lasts longer.

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The pessimist complains about the wind, the optimist expects it to change, the realist adjusts the sails.

Does anyone have any knowledge about the Uniden Mystic? It's a handheld VHF and GPS combo I was thinking about buying....Would appreciate any input.

Why drill any holes? Run the wire inside the mast luff track. This will work on all models, but remember, you have just bypassed the whole non-conductivity of the comptip to some extent. There is plenty of room inside the track. If you are concerned with the bolt rope wearing through the wire's isulation, tack it to the side to keep it out of the way. Remember to leave enough slack at the exit at the mast base to allow the mast to rotate.

What if you just use one of your trapeze wires? you may not need the full height of the mast for the radio, a trapeze wire will suffice, and if you can somehow figure out a way to have a small connector on the trapeze handle or something, then you've got the whole wire as your antenna!

im not sure abt this, as i havent taken into account the internal resistance of that line...and probably the dangers of making your hobie one giant antenna...

just my 2 cents:)

you can always run a wire up along the trap wire, and down back on the other side, to serve as your antenna

Why put an antenna on top of your mast ? If you need help it will more than likely be a capsize or a dismasting and the top of your mast will be in the water. You would also be making a lighting rod.

You could POSSIBLY make one of your trap lines resonant, by putting 2 insulator in a premeasured location along the wire.. However why would you want to do this?

The issues you might have are,

1) Unless you put the insulators far enough up the wire, you are placing a transmitting antenna within reach, and within eye level.. While RF may not cause cancer, it will burn you, and it is not good for the eyes.

2) Your would not only be creating a more directional antenna, but if the boat is healed over, half of your single is going to go in the water (Or say using this during a capsize). The other half of your signal will be propagated way over the horizon.

3) The teflon Insulators do create 2 points of failure on your stays or trap lines , I would rather not have them there.

What you might want to do is get an amateur radio catalog, and find a high gain walkie talkie antenna for 2 meters. 2 Meters is 144-146 MhZ, where VHF Marine is 154 - 157 Mhz. They are close enough that you will not be created too high of an SWR. Or just find a friendly ham that might be able to make a 5/8 rubber antenna that would be resonate in the middle of the Marine band.

I am haowever not sure weather you can use non FCC type accepted antenna's for this band.

Hope this infomation helps.

Brent Hendricks
2005 H-16 S# 13566
Amateur radio operator KF6HDJ(US) HS0ZGB (Thailand)

IF I was planning on being more than 15 miles off shore I would definitely have an antenna installed and a SWR test done before the "journey", for peace of mind. It would be interesting to know the difference in range of a 1 watt radio with antenna and a 5 watt without. From my experience with handhelds, 5 watts is very powerful and should be adequate for "most" applications.

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hobiejohn at earthlink dot net
Fleet 297

On the water? With VHF?

Not much, The key here would be height, but your allready on a flat surface, with no obstructions. Chances are if you can't hit something with 1 watt with a good antenna, you wouldn't be able to hit it with 5 watts with a bad antenna, and vice versa.

The problems encountered by trying to putting a permenant antenna on the Hobie would outweight the advantages of just carrying a handheld.

You should check out the posts at the Beachcats Yahoo group. You'll find it on the main menu at www.thebeachcats.com. Whatever you get, use a dry bag for it. Last year West MArine issued free dry bags to all those that had purchased radios claiming to be waterproof/submersible. This was done because one person, Bill Mattson made a crusade out of failed radios. My guess is that his campaign will save at least one life. I believe he has given his blessings to one radio as being truly submersible. I plan on just keeping mine in a bag. Brian