Questions about buying a back up handheld VHF

[Island Dreamer]

I’ve been looking around online for a good back up handheld VHF. It seems that most of the nicer ones have either five watts or sometimes six watts. Many of the reviews seem to indicate that these handheld radios can transmit up to 20 miles if there is a line of sight. I would mostly be using this out at the Channel Islands were the average distance would be somewhere around 20 to 30 miles but might possibly have an island partially blocking the line of sight. Does that mean that these handheld units would not be of any use?What do people do you for a back up vhf if you’re 60 miles out?I’m just trying to prepare for a worst case scenario if the batteries went dead in the main VHF went down.

 

[tomc585]

VHF is line of sight. With a hand held your limited because of the lack of antenne height (and the arc of the horizon) of both you and the party your atempting to communicate with. Dont expect much from a handheld unless you can hold it up 20+ feet.

 

[Brent]

Beef up battery system with BEP switch, new batteries and check motor charging system is working to specs.

Buy an Epirb and PLB

Look at a marine SSB radio setup.

 

[knotflying]

My experience has been that a handheld is okay for short distance communication when buddy boating or contacting a marina or a bridge opening. If you want reliable backup in the event of a VHF failure buy another VHF hard wired unit.

 

[nicknotsebastian]

odd good uses like need to communicate to boats nerby when fighting gbft solo from the bow holder.

otherwise, ditch bag item.

like said, antenna issue mostly - cuts surface to surface range way down.

 

[Brent]

Antenna height is another variable. Most use 8 ft Long but there are longer ones like 16 ft

 

[Fishfull-Thinking]

I fish the gulfstream 60-70 miles out. I have 2 Icom VHF's that are permanent mounts. I also have a New Horizons hand held with built in GPS that is part of my floating ditch bag. The hand held is a backup if the boat goes down and I need to communicate to any boats (or Cost Guard) that I can see on the horizon. So, my hand held is more for backup in the water and communicating with boats that may be helping in rescue.

 

[Island Dreamer]

I initially thought the handhelds were a back up to the main VHF. Now I realize that a hand held is more of a last ditch communication device. Working on improving my batteries and figuring out if I have an antenna issue.

 

[pelagic2530]

We use handhelds a lot at work. They’re not usually much good past a couple miles. In your case I’d recommend beefing up your fixed VHF installation, and purchasing an EPIRB for emergency signaling. A handheld may give you the ability to talk to nearby boats, who can summon help for you if you’re disabled, but not in distress (an EPIRB is going to bring out rescue helicopters). If you are really concerned with the ability to communicate long range, even VHF isn’t always a great choice. You may want to look into a sat phone or a SPOT messaging device.

 

[Truesdell]

As others have mentioned, antenna height is a major limit with hand-helds. Actually all VHF radios—hand-held and fixed mount 25 watters. The antenna and antenna lead are the most important parts of any and all radio systems. Increasing power is nowhere near as effective as a proper antenna system, well placed. If the antenna lead or connectors are compromised in any any way (cracked cover, corrosion, loose...) that is the first thing you need to address.

Also antenna gain. The rubber ducky is unity gain. The worst permanent-mount antennas are 3 dB gain which is double the gain of the rubber ducky.

If you can connect your handheld to your main antenna or mount an extra antenna ready to go, this will greatly improve your range. One of those base-loaded 1/2 wave wire whips (like at the top of sailboat masts) would be double the gain of the rubber ducky. I’ve even seen those 1/2 wave whips adapted to screw directly into the handheld but that causes problems with stressing the connector on the handheld and keeping the antenna verticals in use.

Radio recommendations: I swear by Icom. Standard Horizon (made by Yaesu) in 2nd place. These companies have radios as the bedrock of their businesses and are worth every penny of the slight increase in initial purchase price. My 25-year-old IC-M72 is an absolute rock.

Additionally, Icom has optimized their audio (both xmit and receive) by emphasizing the frequencies that allow the audio to be discriminated above background noise (engines, wind, etc.) When you hear quality audio, even in sketchy conditions, it’s always coming from an Icom. Plus Icom’s battery life on handhelds is top of the class. One of the first places the el-cheapo brands (West Marine, Cobra, etc.) skimp is on the battery.

I am not associated with Icom in any way but in over 50 years of boating and ham radio, I’ve used just about all the brands and Icom has me hooked for life.

 

[Truesdell]

Sort of off-topic, but for long distance comms I’d go with satellite as opposed to HF-SSB. HF-SSB has some advantages but for ease of operation, reliability, installation, and maintenance, sat-phone wins all day, every day.

 

[rseate]

I would look at the SPOT unit as previous mentioned or the Garmin inReach. Both would give you long range communication ability.