Marine VHF Radios

[i4110peter]

Spring is arriving and the spring Chinook are running - looking for a marine VHF radio under $200. Any suggestion would be appreciated. Anxious to get "Oh 4 Pete's Sake" back in the water!

[spareparts]

ICOM, its the only way to go

[macojoe]

i just got a icom for xmas, going to be great!!

[spareparts]

when you watch "deadliest catch" look around in the wheel house of those boats, they all have an ICOM VHF, most of them the plain old 305. Put your money into a good antenna.

[captpete13]

we use Standard VHF's on all our tow boats. They seem to hold up well

[fishnfetch]

i had a standard and an icom in my last boat. cant go wrong with either one and as someone else said, buy a good antena and mount it as high as possible

[reelapeelin]

when you watch "deadliest catch" look around in the wheel house of those boats, they all have an ICOM VHF, most of them the plain old 305. Put your money into a good antenna.


True!!...a great radio w/a poor antenna is a waste of a good radio!!...

[step up here]

dont think you can buy a poor quality vhf anymore.back in the middle sixties i went from a three or four channel ray jeff to icoms. the interesting thing is the cost. what a great high tech world we live in.

[spareparts]

so who has hte best antenna for the monye? I know a while back locals were praising the gamm digital, but I haven't heard anything about them in a while

[Destroyer]

I run a Uniden Oceanus DSC and love it. http://uniden.com/products/productdetail.cfm?product=OCEANUS%20DSC
If I ever have an emergency all I have to do is push one button to transmit my position, etc. I know Icoms are good, (as are other brands also), but I've not had a single problem with this radio and it's been wet, dropped, bumped, etc and still works like the day it was made. The only thing I don't like about the radio is that the mike is not detatchable, but that's a small thing really. My antenna is a Shakesphere, mostly because that was what was available when I needed a new antenna. But it seems to do the job it was designed for, and ultimately that's the most important criteria. Like everyone else has said, just mount the antenna as high as possible. VHF transmits line of sight. Your radio signal radiates off the tip of the antenna, not the shaft, so the higher the tip of the antenna the farther the distance you can talk. :head:

[reelapeelin]

so who has hte best antenna for the monye? I know a while back locals were praising the gamm digital, but I haven't heard anything about them in a while

A guy can spend more money for one, but for the dollar spent, the Shakespeare GALAXY was the best I could find last time I bought one...the coaxial cable is heavier and the shaft is heavy-duty weight...for our size boat, it'd be hard to beat...:clap: