Standard Horizon 1700E vs Cobra F77

[Seasick Ian]

Hi all,

I'm after a fixed VHF with internal GPS and am undecided between these two. Standard Horizon as a brand seems to be generally more highly regarded, in terms in build quality at least, but this Cobra radio has a nice play-back feature that sounds handy. Anyone got real world experience of this, is it just a gimmick? For the GPS, i'm only after a position; I'm not too fussed about how many waypoints it can store etc. On features, I'm partial to the cobra, but on quality of product, the SH has good rep. Power consumption might be important as I only have solar + outboard charging. Current drain for the Cobra is given as 0.2A stand-by/ 0.3A receive whereas the SH gives 0.45A/0.8A. Reckon those are honest?

 

[pvb]

Standard Horizon! Cobra doesn't have anywhere near such a good reputation, and their literature is poor. You mentioned the current drain of the Cobra as 0.2A standby and 0.3A receive. But if you look at the manual for the Cobra, it claims only 0.02A standby and 0.2A receive. I think the Standard Horizon figures will be more honest.

 

[ghostlymoron]

I had the same decision to make and chose SH. I was intrigued by the that cobra's playback facility which sounded like a good feature to have. I have a Cobra handheld which was given to me by the widow of a good sailing partner, it works ok for what I want from it.

 

[PaulRainbow]

Standard Horizon, no question.

 

[RobF]

Another vote for Standard Horizon. I've never really seen the value in playback - you can always ask the person you're talking to repeat their last statement.

 

[Norman_E]

I have an older SH model, the 1500E. It has performed faultlessly, and in the days when we had the daily channel 69 cruisers net in Marmaris I was often the person who did the relay for people with less effective VHF sets. Buy an SH set and just make sure that your antenna and its connections are good, as a poor antenna, poor quality or incorrect specification antenna cable, and poor connections are the main cause of weak VHF communication.

 

[Seasick Ian]

OK thanks for the replies, I've gone for the standard horizon. I was originally going to use the existing cable and antenna, but it looks pretty poor so I'll upgrade the lot, to get the best out of the new radio. I'm thinking of the Metz Manta with RG8X coax runnning through an Index Marine deck gland, all in one piece with no connectors except at the radio and antenna ends.