Upgrading to DSC VHF - Which one?

[stav]

The RAM mike on my SH has the DSC distress button, excellent reception at long distances. My set 3500 is no longer made but would replace with similar again. Must say coming through the casqeuts TSS the other day the AIS was invaluable in planning a course through the east bound ships as I was looking at ships I could not even see. I do have radar but it is old and despite constant playing with it not an expert.

 

[prv]

The Standard Horizon RAM3 remote handset does allow remote access to distress/mayday - at least according to the blurb.

I have one, and yes it does.

I'm a big fan of cockpit control/mics, and I like my SH radio generally, but I have to say I haven't quite fallen in love with my RAM3. Its proportions don't sit well in my hand, the cord is too short (intended for motorboat dashboards rather than sailing boat cockpits I suspect) and the plug on the cable has a very fine screw thread requiring many turns where it should be a quick-release bayonet type (ironically the radio end, which you never need to unplug, does have a quick-release!).

In the great scheme of things these are niggles, though, and I'd still recommend SH radios and commandmics. For what it's worth I think the Radio Ocean pictured upthread is horribly ugly, and cheap-looking

Pete

 

[alan_d]

Nor does the remote mic have a Mayday button, you still need to go to the main unit for that.

Are you sure? Mine does, under a red swivelling cover. Perhaps it is a later model.

 

[macd]

Are you sure? Mine does, under a red swivelling cover. Perhaps it is a later model.

Are we talking about the same bit of kit: Radio Ocean P4800 remote handset? There's no red cover, swivelling or otherwise, on mine.

 

[JohnGC]

Are you sure? Mine does, under a red swivelling cover. Perhaps it is a later model.

No my RO 4800 wireless handset definitely doesn't have a distress button. I can't find a new model on the Radio Ocean site that does.

The RAM mike on my SH has the DSC distress button, excellent reception at long distances.

The other difference with the RO 4800 is that the RAM is a wired mic.

 

[alan_d]

Are we talking about the same bit of kit: Radio Ocean P4800 remote handset? There's no red cover, swivelling or otherwise, on mine.

Sorry, my mistake, I thought you were talking about the Standard Horizon.

 

[Boo2]

We've just bought the RO4800 and P4800 wireless second station - £269.90 for the pair. Adding a GlobalSat SIRF IV GPS mouse to give the AIS the GPS data.

How do you connect the USB output from the Globalsat GPS mouse to the RO4800 ?

Boo2

 

[ghostlymoron]

Going back to the original enquiry, I would suggest compiling a list of required features and reputable manufacturers and taking it from there. My required features would be:-
Rotary channel selection,
Remote full featured cockpit handset
Effective squelch control
Large font display

Reputable manufacturers would include:-
iCom
Standard Horizon

I wouldn't bother with built in AIS as the screen is too small to be useful and you can't rely on ships giving the correct (or any) information anyway. In congested areas, you're constantly bombarded with irrelevant alerts.

 

[lustyd]

Before making a purchase, find somewhere to try out the interface. On the SH kit it's obvious how to make a call to an MMSI, add MMSI to the phone book, request a position from another vessel etc...

While on last years Poole trip, I helped Ru88el try his calling facility out on (I think) an ICOM set. Even with the manual we couldn't work out how to answer a call or make one. This is very likely a large part of why the majority hate DSC and if you're upgrading for that reason then think carefully about how usable you'd like it and try before you buy. The shop won't let you do a mayday call but they should let you call the radio next to it on the display if they want a sale - even the display radios can call a couple of metres as they only lack the amplifier to boost the signal, not the tranmitter itself.

As for ghostlymoron saying don't bother with built in AIS, I would strongly disagree. Yes the screen is small, and yes if you don't read the manual you'll get alerts. On the other hand, for very little extra money one box uses less power than two, one box doesn't require a splitter or separate antenna, and one box is easier to integrate with a plotter so that both AIS targets and position requests/distress alerts show up on the chart. This means if you're sailing in company you can actually poll the fleet and see them on the chart alongside the ships etc with AIS. When the infernal DSC box bleeps you can immediately see if you're close on the plotter screen and dismiss if appropriate. When a ship is on a collision course you can see that too, having filtered out the small yachts with class B AIS transmitters.

 

[AngusMcDoon]

I wouldn't bother with built in AIS as the screen is too small to be useful and you can't rely on ships giving the correct (or any) information anyway. In congested areas, you're constantly bombarded with irrelevant alerts.

You don't have to look at the AIS info on the VHF itself. You feed it into a chartplotter.

 

[macd]

As for ghostlymoron saying don't bother with built in AIS, I would strongly disagree. Yes the screen is small, and yes if you don't read the manual you'll get alerts. On the other hand, for very little extra money one box uses less power than two, one box doesn't require a splitter or separate antenna, and one box is easier to integrate with a plotter so that both AIS targets and position requests/distress alerts show up on the chart. This means if you're sailing in company you can actually poll the fleet and see them on the chart alongside the ships etc with AIS. When the infernal DSC box bleeps you can immediately see if you're close on the plotter screen and dismiss if appropriate. When a ship is on a collision course you can see that too, having filtered out the small yachts with class B AIS transmitters.

+1

I'd agree with ghostly that AIS might be a pain in the Solent or anywhere similarly congested, but you can always disable it. Regarding his statement that "you can't rely on ships giving the correct (or any) information anyway", I'd suggest that's a gross exaggeration.

 

[Vara]

I wouldn't bother with built in AIS as the screen is too small to be useful and you can't rely on ships giving the correct (or any) information anyway. In congested areas, you're constantly bombarded with irrelevant alerts.

On my AIS/Plotter combination, the AIS information would appear to be pretty well spot on and I would now feel very uncomfortable about crossing the shipping lanes in the Dover straits with out it. Conversations with other Dover sailors would confirm my views.

 

[prv]

I wouldn't bother with built in AIS as the screen is too small to be useful

I think you've missed the point of built-in AIS on a radio. It's not about the display and usability on the front of the radio, it's about the aerials and wiring behind it. By letting the VHF listen to the AIS channels as well as channel 70 (DSC) and whatever voice channels you're monitoring, you do away with the need for a second antenna, or a splitter (which are surprisingly expensive and add a potential failure point and possible attenuation to your main antenna), a certain amount of antenna wiring, and an additional black box. All this stuff is contained inside the radio and available for no additional effort. You only need to do the final simple step of wiring it up to your plotter or (my preference) a dedicated display unit. I have the radio's own rather simplistic set of alarms all turned off, and I will never be looking at AIS data on the screen of the radio - in fact I wish they hadn't bothered to display it at all and instead used the dedicated "AIS" button for something more useful.

Pete

 

[ghostlymoron]

I was thinking of the AIS radio screen being the only way to see data. If you can relay it to a plotter display, that's a different situation but standalone black boxes are cheap even with the extrra aerial. Regarding ships always displaying accurate info, I saw 2 ships not displaying over the last few days!

 

[prv]

standalone black boxes are cheap even with the extrra aerial.

I suspect the built-in option works out less overall assuming someone was planning to buy a reasonably high-spec radio anyway - but in any case for me it's not about price but simplicity. I don't like aerials on the stern rail, and have no other sensible location except the masthead which doesn't have space for two. I'm particular about my VHF aerial wiring and really didn't want to insert extra connectors and an active box into it. The built-in approach made the best sense from every direction.

Pete

 

[Norman_E]

The Standard Horizon RAM3 remote handset does allow remote access to distress/mayday - at least according to the blurb. I don't have one, but am considering getting the AIS radio and remote - we normally sail two up and having full access to the radio from on deck will be useful.

Neil

My Standard Horizon RAM mike does have a mayday button, under a red flap.

 

[Andrew G]

Do any of you have personal experience with the Icom VHF radios?
I think the M423 is the latest? - there are cheaper models. It has an option of a remote mic. in the cockpit with all controls on it.
Radio is ~Au$470 and Command Mic. +~Au$300. Cheers, Andrew

 

[ninky]

We had ICOM M411 on our boat. Very simple to use. Didn't bother with remote mic though.

 

[lustyd]

We had ICOM M411 on our boat. Very simple to use. Didn't bother with remote mic though.

Did you use DSC calling on it? Very few radios are hard to use as a traditional radio but several of them are near impossible to make and receive DSC calls and pos requests on. I believe the distress menu is now a standard so that shouldn't be an issue.