Icom IC-M501 Euro VHF help

[cpedw]

My recently acquired boat came fitted with Icom M501 Euro plus DS100 VHF & DSC controller. They are quite old tech but seem to work fine so replacement is low on the priority list.

I find the basic radio annoyingly clunky to change channel. (Why are there so many VHF channels, and so few that we use?) Is there a way to limit the active channels to the useful ones so there isn't so much wrist-twisting to get from 10 to 62?

I tried to read the manual but didn't find it much help. It talks of "Channel Groups" and "Call Channels" which I don't understand (apart from channel 16). Can anyone help me to understand these; could they help me to restrict the readily-accessible channels?

Thanks,
Derek

 

[Bilgediver]

You should have up and down buttons on the hand mike which may do channel by channel plus fast change if continuously pressed. Another dodge is to put the weather channels into scan and following the announcement on 16 hit the scan button.You might have to set the scan so it locks on till the station finishes transmission. Mind you if your set has loads of other channels in scan this might not work for you.

 

[cpedw]

Thanks for that pointer. Yes, putting all the channels of interest to me into Scan then using the CHannel Selector with Scan gives easy selection through all the useful channels, ignoring the rest.