Handheld VHF advice

[ShinyShoe]

But is voice not your redundancy?

Sh17 - I'm sinking - 5 seconds on red button as you head to the raft, dinghy, water. Great. But if that doesn't happen a voice call on HH will convey the information you REALLY need to. So DSC says who you are - but you can do that. HH DSC identifies YOU not the BOAT so may not be as useful to the searchers. DSC may send a little further but on a HH is always going to be a little limited. You can pass the 'nature' of the call by DSC. You can do the same by voice, usually in clearer terms. The one thing DSC will do is give your position. BUT you presumably know roughly where you are. So you can get assets roughly in the right place and be located more precisely from the PLB signal when its routed through.

Do you carry a third VHF just incase the first two both fail?

 

[Bru]

But is voice not your redundancy?

No. Voice and DSC are, like DSC and PLB, complimentary not functionally interchangeable

issuing a DSC Mayday takes seconds, a voice Mayday much longer

And whilst I'm always aware of my rough position, I may not have time to note an exact fix.

But more importantly, issuing a DSC Mayday complete with position fix by pressing the red button is simple and easy for less experienced crew to do. It's easily briefed and easily remembered

Do you carry a third VHF just incase the first two both fail?

No, that would be silly

 

[maby]

But is voice not your redundancy?

Sh17 - I'm sinking - 5 seconds on red button as you head to the raft, dinghy, water. Great. But if that doesn't happen a voice call on HH will convey the information you REALLY need to. So DSC says who you are - but you can do that. HH DSC identifies YOU not the BOAT so may not be as useful to the searchers. DSC may send a little further but on a HH is always going to be a little limited. You can pass the 'nature' of the call by DSC. You can do the same by voice, usually in clearer terms. The one thing DSC will do is give your position. BUT you presumably know roughly where you are. So you can get assets roughly in the right place and be located more precisely from the PLB signal when its routed through.

Do you carry a third VHF just incase the first two both fail?

We carry a SH fixed radio and a SH DSC handle. As a licenced radio amateur, I carry other radios including a couple of cheap handles that I can use legally on the amateur bands - everything that is capable of transmitting on channel 16 has it programmed in - in an emergency with both my legal marine band radios dead, I would use a Baofeng and argue not the toss later!

 

[Yngmar]

A few words in favour of the cheap Cobra HH125. I have one and it does the job of cockpit radio just fine. It has bounced around the cockpit a couple times with no harm and withstood rain. Centre cockpit, so ability for radio to swim not required. Battery wise it does what you ask - rechargeable AAA cells that are recharged in place, but can be replaced for a set of Alkalines when needed.

It does have the M1/M2 channels.

My Amazon review at the time I bought it in July 2014 (the original rechargeables are still good btw):

This is a simple handheld radio with a solid design and reasonable battery life. It comes with 5x NiMH rechargeable AAA batteries and a 12V cigarette lighter charger. A mains charger is not included. It can also be used with non-rechargeable Alkaline batteries. Batteries are a bit tight-fitting and difficult to pry out (but typically you'll not need to do that very often).

The display is large and easily readable at any angle with or without the back-light on, except for some reason it becomes unreadable when looking at it from above while the back-light is lit. The buttons work well and have a nice click to them.

Speaker quality seems quite good and the maximum volume should be plenty loud. It features a roger beep and audible feedback for key presses, both of which can be toggled in the setup mode. A belt clip is included as well as a (somewhat small) wrist strap and there's a 2.5mm headphone jack at the top.

This is the EU version (MR HH125EU), in which (unlike advertised above) the channel map switching is disabled and the device is permanently locked to the international channel map. So if you were planning to take this along when cruising to the US or Canada, you'll have an unpleasant surprise when trying to switch channel maps (it simply skips that setting when you enter the setup mode).

It is also not waterproof (not safe to immerse in water at any depth). It's JIS4 rated, which means splash proof (i.e. it should survive a bit of rain), similar to IPx4 rating.

 

[nigelmercier]

Wise man say "he who dies with the most toys wins"

My signature in the early days of the Internet was ille quid mortem cum maximus ludos, vincat

Thats for the replies and looking like aSH 870e is on the cards!

I've got a previous model to the HX870E, the HX851E. Can't fault it.

Standard Horizon are the same company as Yaesu, most respected by the Amateur Radio community.

 

[Biggles Wader]

A few words in favour of the cheap Cobra HH125. I have one and it does the job of cockpit radio just fine. It has bounced around the cockpit a couple times with no harm and withstood rain. Centre cockpit, so ability for radio to swim not required. Battery wise it does what you ask - rechargeable AAA cells that are recharged in place, but can be replaced for a set of Alkalines when needed.

It does have the M1/M2 channels.

My Amazon review at the time I bought it in July 2014 (the original rechargeables are still good btw):

I had the cheap Cobra 125 and it was fine for everyday in and out od harbour stuff.What it didnt do is float when I chucked it overboard
I doubt it worked after that either,but never found it to test.
I replaced it with a Cobra 325 which has been fine so far.

 

[PaulRainbow]

Redundancy

I don't like single points of failure and having the DSC handheld gives me a second DSC option if the fixed DSC set fails for any reason. Plus, the DSC handheld goes in the grab bag as part of the "oh shit, abandon ship" procedure giving us DSC mayday capability in the liferaft if we haven't had time to hit the panic button, or it was u/s, on the fixed set

We also have a PLB but PLBs/EPIRBS and DSC emergency functionality are complimentary rather than functionally equivalent (e.g. in coastal waters, where we mainly sail, a DSC mayday will invoke a response much more quickly, potentially, than activating the PLB. Conversely, the PLB will work for longer and at far greater ranges. Both is better than one or t'other unless the pennies are really tight)

Absolutely agree with your thinking.