need marine radio

What do you all mean by "if you have GPS" for the DSC feature? He has a GPS thing I got him a couple years ago, with the intention of using for deer hunting. But is that the type of GPS thing you're talking about, or something different?

On Aug 7, 11:20 am, Gene Kearns <gene.boat...@myworkshop.idleplay.net> wrote:

I purchased a brand new Horizon Eclipse Plus GX 1250S AA (compact with weather alert) marine VHF radio for $84 (including shipping) June, 2006 and it works fine. We boat on Lake Erie. I bought it on Ebay. Here is one for $100:

http://www.rivermarinesupply.com/xcart/catalog/product_10652_Standard_Horizon_Eclipse_Plus.html

Shakespeare 5102 VHF antenna - $53 from boatfix.com

Shakespeare 4187 chrome ratchet mount - $30 delivered on ebay.

If you install it yourself (easy) - you can get the boat totally set up for under $200.

Hope this helps. ;-)

Standard Horizon or Icom. I'd rather see a fixed mount than a hand held, although modern hand held radios are feature loaded.

I use Icom for what it's worth. Fixed and hand held.

For that boat, a base loaded stainless steel whip will be fine. You can mount it on a rail.

For small inland lakes, a cell phone will work best since few people monitor a VHF on small, recreational, lakes.

There have been suggestions to buy a fixed VHF or a hand held. You really should have both. A fixed unit has more power and a longer antenna so your range is much higher than a hand held unit. If your battery is swamped or you lose power for any other reason, a hand held will still work.

The longer the antenna, the better. VHF is "line of sight" and while that may seem like a long distance, it's not as far as you might think. For example, an 8' antenna mounted 3 feet above the waterline (11' overall) can only transmit and receive about 4.5 miles until the horizon blocks the signal. This will be more depending on the height of the other antenna but you can see how short the distance can be.

Standard Horizon and Icom are great. I had the Icom and only replaced it with my Standard Horizon after the rechargeable battery stopped taking a decent charge. Also consider Raymarine. They make some nice fixed units. I still use my Ray45 that I bought in 2001.

Dan

> For small inland lakes, a cell phone will work best since few people > monitor a VHF on small, recreational, lakes.

Not sure for the small lakes, but you may be way better off with VHF, at least if it is equipped with DSC and hooked up to a GPS: See http://www.boatsmart.net/viewstory.php?story_id=70&year=2003 You should have high mounted coast guard antennas by now if the plan has been followed. These will reach 30-40 nautical miles, provided you have a fixed mount VHF (which has 25W transmision power vs 5W of a handheld). A handheld unit is useful as a backup should fire damage the battery the fixed mounted VHF is hooked up to - which it usually does. But then a 17' boat is not that big.

If it works as I would guess, you can send off an emergency call with all the details in 10 seconds of your time. It will contain the nature of the distress situation (man over board, fire, aground etc), the precise location and your boat's registered identity (MMSI, linked to information of size, kind, contact numbers etc of vessel) automatically until it gets acknowledged by USCG. I hope you will never need it but if you do, you will be glad you have DSC+GPS. No more guessing, no more spelling.

See GMDSS and DSC keywords (on google, or eg http://www.navcen.uscg.gov/marcomms/gmdss/gmdss_systems.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Maritime_Distress_Safety_System

HTH

Marc

PS: Over here in Europe using mobile phones for emergencies on sea is strongly discouraged - because it will only allow you to call one station instead of all stations within reach, because some numbers are not permanently watched, because you may be in an area not covered, because commercial vessels will not play relay, because you do not reach professional help etc - but of course use it if it is all you have.

Schedule :-( delayed for the Great Lakes but fully operational by 2011: http://www.uscg.mil/rescue21/about/images/R21%20Schedule.pdf

HTH

Marc