Anybody use PMR446 radios on board?

[Wakatere]

Last Tuesday, in noisy wind conditions, I was in the cockpit with the engine running and the crew was on the foredeck hanging over the edge trying to get the mooring pickup. We had some difficulty making ourselves understood. Hand signals are good, but when he has one hand for the boathook, one for the mooring pickup and one for the boat they are a bit limited. Has anybody any experience of PMR radios (perhaps with voice-operated Tx) for this sort of application?

TIA

Charles

 

[stuartwineberg]

Always have them on board - not so much for the situation you describe but more for WTF are you messages when I can't find my crew on the marina. Also very useful abroad (although possibly not legal in some countries) instead of paying outlandish mobile phone charges when people go off shopping for supplies etc etc. Mine aren't waterproof and in the situation you mention I don't think they would last long.

 

[Cliveshep]

PMR446 Mhz band is a European licence free band so you should have no problems anywhere. We use them, purchase with chargers for as little as £30 pair BUT keep them in a polythene sandwich bag. Even so, by the time winter is over so are the radios unless you can take out the batteries and keep them charged up until you need to use them again. We use them for the same thing, WTF are you to the kids in the dinghy or ashore at the sweet shop or SWMBO wanting something not on her previous extravagent list!

 

[Piers]

We use them. In the voice activated mode, we find the wind and other noises keeps triggering them, making comms hard so we don't use that feature.

We use ICOM with the earpiece and the separate push to talk. V effective, and appear (from reality!) to be splash proof. We went with ICOM, since, at the time, there appeared to be many issues with buld and voice quality of the less expensice makes.

 

[Refueler]

I have a couple of Binatones and use the same rechargeable AAA's as my Cobra VHF's. But they usually never come out of the bag. Having the 2 HH Cobra's ... they get used instead "by accident" ....

The Voice Activated HF are weird to use ... as they clip the first part of any message while circuit clicks in / out .. so you start by using a silly word to get it to click in and follow by the message !! Like me - you'll probably give up with the VA HF and go back to radion on it's own.

 

[RestlessL]

I too find PMR446 very useful for ship-shore between crew/kids/swmbo. I ended up buying a pair of SH VX-146 sets which are better suited to harsh use than the cheap sets. PMR446 is (1) legal for use ashore, and (2) the CTCSS or DCS selective calling system means that the receiver is quiet until called.

I don't find voice activation much use, and for speaking with crew on the foredeck, or up the mast, I usually use VHF HHs.

I have a pair which have Chs 87 & 88 set to simplex use, and these give me an almost private channel (the shore-ship frequency for 87&88 has been allocated to AIS).

 

[Andrew_Fanner]

I have a pair of fairly fancy Motorola ones, they are used for comss between kids in the tender and parents on board, as well as with the away team if there is one. Voxop is pretty good, but they have been set up for use airsofting as well so that guns dont start the tx function. Useful kit.