Home Forums Fishing Saltwater Needing a marine radio soon....

Anyone have a working vhf marine radio for a decent price ?
Maybe an antenna too ?
Gotta start rigging my boat for ocean outings.

I’ve ordered a couple from The GPS Store. Usually have good prices and good service.

I use a Standard Horizon. I think it’s the 2200 model.
Set up your DSC.

So much to know.
Digital select calling seems to be a better way to transmit than going down and trying to hail someone.

A good radio setup may be better than a life jacket. For what they cost, no reason to go without if you venture offshore.

and a back up. I always take a hand held Cobra as a back up

Why not go into electronics store

I always had good luck with Icom. Hasbeen

Standard Horizon or Icom are the two of the best fixed mount VHF radios. Digital makes a great antenna.

I don't have a lot of experience with marine radios in particular, but more with land mobile VHF and portable HF. The traditional big three are Kenwood, Yaesu (Standard Horizon), and Icom. Motorola is still doing some things in the commercial and public safety sector but they're not what they used to be. I don't think Cobra even makes a fixed VHF radio, just walkie talkies and CB's. Uniden has a few low-end fixed models. Kenwood doesn't make a marine-specific VHF radio, but they do make good HF radios suitable for transoceanic vessels. There's other HF radio makers in the SDR segment (like Flex and Apache Labs) worth considering but you mentioned VHF not HF. So I'd concur with Bill and suggest looking at Yaesu (Standard Horizon) and Icom. I would look and see if you can find a made-in-Japan radio rather than one made in China, Malaysia or Mexico. Another thing to consider is how hard it is to program. I use a PC to synchronize the programming of all my VHF radios. Kenwood provides the software for free (the programming cable costs a few bucks). For Yaesu and ICOM you generally have to buy aftermarket software -- or just program each radio individually. If you only have one, or you only ever use one frequency, not a big deal.