The 10 Best Marine Electronics – VHF Radios reviews

Hi! Chuck Holly from West Marine. I’m talking with Jason Kennedy from standard horizon white there’s a lot of great new products coming out of standard horizon. One of which is the newest version of their handheld combination VHF GPS tell. Is about one Jason hey Chuck today. We have the HX 851 new for this year we’ve changed the gasketing and. Now it’s glow-in-the-dark gasketing we’ve also added Waypoint navigation so. You can navigate to. And from up to 200 waypoints.

My favorite new feature of the HX 851 is a water enabled strobe. So this is a floating VHF radio that has a built in GPS built-in digital selective calling a built-in strobe light. It glows in the dark it’s pretty amazing this is truly the safety radio in the market safety radio know you’d expect for all those features for this to be a rather expensive radio what’s the retail price of the 850. You can find it at any of the West Marine stores for 260 999 to 6995. And nine you not only get a gps. You get a strobe light. You get a DSC radio yeah a ton of stuff. These are available from West Marine.

Hi, Chuck Holly with a west brain minute on the standard Horizon HX 150 VHF radio. This is a floating VHF radio but take a look at how small this thing is. I mean it’s beautifully contoured, fits in the hand easily. When the original floating VHF radios came out, they were like a loaf of bread.

Well, this is a lot smaller. This is closer to like a pack of playing cards. It has a 10-hour battery, life nice big battery capacity in the back. It does not have a dot matrix display. It paid basically has very simple functions so it’s got an easy-to-read LCD. And there’s not a GPS. Or a DSC radio. So you want those features may have to look elsewhere.

But what you get in return is a small rugged waterproof radio. It comes with the AC charger for either 110 volts or 240 volts so it’s universal. You can use wherever you’re located and then the drop-in charger base. You want a simple affordable floating radio, the HX 150 is for you available throughout the West Marine chain of stores and online.

Hi Chuck Holly from West rain. And I’m with Jason Kennedy from standard horizon he’s got an interesting new little floating VHF radio so tell. Me about a Jason well the HX 300 Chuck it’s a floating VHF radio with. Some new technologies. Now does this use a lithium-ion battery. Or what’s the battery technology. It does use a lithium ion battery it’s a very small compact but large capacity lithium ion it’s 1560 milli amp hours but what’s unique about. It is the size of this battery not the capacity is high-capacity but it’s our size. And our voltage that makes. Is unique many operating hours using. That 95 v rule will. This go for I believe. This one’s going to be about 12 to 14 hours of normal use so over a full day’s worth of use. We use a dot matrix display. Or is at a fixed display we’re actually using a fixed display on. This radio here this a DSC radio with the GPS. This kind of smaller. More compact radio this is a smaller. More compact VHF radio. One thing we did add is the three point seven volt battery technology. Most of the radio is out there charged at seven point four volts. And at three point seven volts. We can charge via USB so it’s a unique way to charge. This product here with a USB a. More consumer electronics style charger do. You have to use the standard horizon charger. You use say something you might have for a cell phone. Or another small device yeah. You have a USB charger from a cell phone. You would just go ahead. You can use the standard horizon provide a charger.

That comes in the box it’s 100% waterproof its 100% waterproof. It floats even with the radio off. You drop this in the water you’ll notice with the radio as the radio is powered off the strobe light will turn on so the customer can go out. And retrieve this is really a cool radio. Because we’ve gone from having radios. That are floating but they’re so big. You don’t want to carry them to. Something that’s the size of a normal VHF radio long battery life really handsome design available from standard horizon through the West brainstorm chain of stores. And of course at West brain online.

Hi Chuck Holly from West marine. And I’m here in a very noisy West brain university booth we’re talking to Jason Kennedy from standard horizon Jason. You were telling me. This is a brand-new product for you in an includes a VHF. And a GPS correct it’s the first VHF radio fixed mount. That have we incorporated a GPS into so. What kind of boater. What what advantage does. That give you over a normal VHF well the. One thing about digital selective calling all the radios have DSC but not. All the boaters have connected their DSC. Or entered their mmsi number sometimes it’s a challenge to wire up a GPS chart water. And a VHF radio so what we wanted to do is bring the VHF radio in the chart plotter together basically by incorporating the GPS into our VHF radio. Now does this requires an external antenna. Whereas the GPS capable of receiving through the boat the GPS is actually built into the front panel of the VHF radio. It will take an external. If required but on 99% of the boats. Idon’t to say that well but about 99 was on a boat. Even flush-mounted it will receive GPS reason tenet have got so much. More sensitive in the last. Few years so it’s made. It very easy for us to put in. That receiver, so we talked to the Coast Guard about search-and-rescue.

One of the things they tell. Us inevitably is that people have radios people have GPS is but the two aren’t talking to. Another so this is a great step forward. This product you enter in your MMS. I number which you can get for free from boat. Us enter them the information. And you’re off and running so as soon as. You turn on the radio. It computes a fix okay. And then I have to do to make a DSC call is. What just lift up the DSC distress button sends out your latitude longitude every vessel in the area including Coast Guard. You can go in some of the individual calling features of DSC is not just a stress. Most consumers or boaters think. That DSC is distressed but there are other features like individual call group call so. Ihave five or six vessels in my fleet. Ican call every vessel at the same time. Ican do individual position requests. Or position sends so. Ican actually send my data to Chuck.

You out there wouldn’t know. I was but Chuck would know exactly. You know one of the challenges. That I’ve seen with using the other DSC functions is. That it’s really hard to make the radio do. That’s because they have small displays. That don’t have any information. This has a nice large display. We fit a large display. And a very compact size here so you’ll see. It swivels through the bracket the only raid on the market. That does that but. You go into the unit. We have our individual DSC call list so. I can do individual call group call. I can do an all ships call the other day. I was on the water I saw a container ship for a container floating in the water so. I just made an all ships call. I didn’t want to do a distress but. Iwanted every vessel out there to know.

This container was floating out there so. I did an all ships call. Igave them my latitude longitude so. Igot about three or four replies saying thank. They might not have seen. That container floating out there so digital selective calling got off to a little bit of a slow start in the United States but it’s a wonderful technology. It boy I’ll tell us been from the Coast Guard we’d be saying how important. It is to their search. And rescue operations. Whether you’re using it for search-and-rescue. Or you’re just trying to alert people to a container. What a great feature. This new radio what model is. It that’s the G X 1700 Explorer GPS ok the G X 1700 Explorer GPS VHF is available from west bring calm. And of course at any of our 300 stores.

Hi! Chuck Holly from West marine. You know any boat that goes. Even a small distance offshore. Or across major inland bodies of water needs to have a fixed mount VHF radio on board. And we’d like to suggest. This standard horizon Eclipse DSC would be a good choice. This is a full feature radio including digital selective calling which allows. You to send your position to the Coast Guard automatically. You just flip up this red panel here. And push and hold the button. And it’ll send your GPS position. And your boat’s unique identifier to the Coast Guard so. They can come out and rescue you.

In addition this has. All the normal international Canadian. And US channels and it’s got a built-in scanner the scanner allows. You to pick the selected channels. You want to listen to so. You can monitor perhaps fishing channels. Or those used for a yacht race. Or those that are just used for normal communication. It also has the ability to selectively to quickly select channel 16 by just pushing this button. Ican go to channel 16. And then back to my previous channel. Ialso have 10 NOAA weather channels available to. Me with a single push of the button. And the ability to choose between high. And low transmit power.

This is built into a waterproof radio with a large liquid crystal display the standard horizon Eclipse DSC is available for under $100. And of course it’s available from west Marine.

Hi Chuck Holly from West marine. And I’m here in a very noisy West brain university booth we’re talking to Jason Kennedy from standard horizon Jason. You were telling me. This is a brand-new product for you in an includes a VHF. And a GPS correct it’s the first VHF radio fixed mount. That have we incorporated a GPS into so. What kind of boater. What what advantage does. That give you over a normal VHF well the. One thing about digital selective calling all the radios have DSC but not. All the boaters have connected their DSC. Or entered their mmsi number sometimes it’s a challenge to wire up a GPS chart water. And a VHF radio so what we wanted to do is bring the VHF radio in the chart plotter together basically by incorporating the GPS into our VHF radio. Now does this requires an external antenna. Whereas the GPS capable of receiving through the boat the GPS is actually built into the front panel of the VHF radio. It will take an external. If required but on 99% of the boats. Idon’t to say that well but about 99 was on a boat. Even flush-mounted it will receive GPS reason tenet have got so much. More sensitive in the last. Few years so it’s made. It very easy for us to put in. That receiver, so we talked to the Coast Guard about search-and-rescue.

One of the things they tell us inevitably is that people have radios people have GPS is but the two aren’t talking to. Another so this is a great step forward. This product you enter in your MMS. Inumber which you can get for free from boat. Us enter them the information. And you’re off and running so as soon as. You turn on the radio. It computes a fix okay. And then I have to do to make a DSC call is. What just lift up the DSC distress button sends out your latitude longitude every vessel in the area including Coast Guard. You can go in some of the individual calling features of DSC is not just a stress. Most consumers or boaters think. That DSC is distressed but there are other features like individual call group call so. Ihave five or six vessels in my fleet. Ican call every vessel at the same time. Ican do individual position requests. Or position sends so. Ican actually send my data to Chuck.

You out there wouldn’t know. Iwas but Chuck would know exactly. You know one of the challenges. That I’ve seen with using the other DSC functions is. That it’s really hard to make the radio do. That’s because they have small displays. That don’t have any information. This has a nice large display. We fit a large display. And a very compact size here so you’ll see. It swivels through the bracket the only raid on the market. That does that but. You go into the unit. We have our individual DSC call list so. Ican do individual call group call. Ican do an all ships call the other day. Iwas on the water I saw a container ship for a container floating in the water so. Ijust made an all ships call. Ididn’t want to do a distress but. Iwanted every vessel out there to know.

This container was floating out there. So I did an all ships call. I gave them my latitude longitude so. Igot about three or four replies saying thank. They might not have seen. That container floating out there so digital selective calling got off to a little bit of a slow start in the United States but it’s a wonderful technology. It boy I’ll tell us been from the Coast Guard we’d be saying how important. It is to their search. And rescue operations. Whether you’re using it for search-and-rescue. Or you’re just trying to alert people to a container. What a great feature. This new radio what model is. It that’s the G X 1700 Explorer GPS ok the G X 1700 Explorer GPS VHF is available from west bring calm. And of course at any of our 300 stores.

Hi Chuck Holly from West marine today we’re looking at the standard horizon GX 1600 VHF radio. It goes under the name of the Explorer. And it’s a really nice brand-new model. That meets the new DSC Class D requirements what’s DSC Class D well it’s a way for radios to communicate digitally. And the FCC changed the rules so. That virtually all existing fixed mount VHF radios went off the market. And to replace their existing line of radios standard horizon did a beautiful job of integrating some neat features into. This radio the first thing you notice is. It has a big dot matrix liquid crystal display so. This makes it extremely easy to see. What channel you’re on to see your speed. And course and to see your latitude. And longitude now your speed. And course and latitude longitude are. Provided by an external GPS receiver but. This allows you to send emergency messages using the DSC function. You flip up this little pad here push distress. You can send what amounts to a Mayday emergency message to other vessels in the area.

That have a DSC equipped radio there’s. Some other features too. That make this nice. It uses a clear voice noise cancelling microphone. You hold it fairly closes to your mouth but. It gets rid of engine noise. And wind noise so that your voice is heard clearly. It also has some convenient buttons on the microphone so. You can control three. Or four functions without having to reach the radio the other feature. We really like is it has a very short chassis so. If you’re installing this into a console. You don’t want a big old radio sticking in. And getting in the way of other items inside the console. This radio protrudes only about. That much inside so it’s extremely easy to install in a flush mount location. You can install it on a bracket like.

It here so with these features. You think this would be. Several hundred dollars the Explorer radio from standard horizon is priced well under $200. And like all standard horizon products available at West Marine.

Hello Paul Harrison from C voice training here I’d like to show. Some Marine VHF radio equipment. We use at sea voice training we’re usually the icon marine VHF handheld radios. And fit sets and also standard horizon VHF radios in the next couple of tutorial videos we’ll be showing you. How to use these sets correctly. And to be able to operate them in the routine call an urgency call. And a distress call thank. You I’d like to show. Now the different operation of the standard arise in G x1500 a training VHF radio. We use at sea voice training and with. This set we need to do the power on slightly different. This time which you press. This button in here so. They bought the bottom for the far right. We will press within words which will start the with start setup so. We press that first. And automatically get a window channel 16. And also the background noise so. We need to now adjust the volume as well slightly different operation of.

On the volume control is on the startup. And button so we need to adjust. Whatever we want it’s comfortable for us. We need to adjust the squelch. And bring that up too to stop the background noise oh hey slowly until. It just stops and the set of the moment is on 25 watts of power. You need to use this to speak to a vessel which is a lot closer to. Us we’ll use 1 watt of power. This set will use what’s the h. And l which is high 25 watts. And L low 1 watt so we’ll. It on 2 1 1 now a 1 watt is also saying in the window no position in no time the can be able position in time as long as it’s connected to a GPS a global positioning system.

That would give us the time from the satellite at the moment. We don’t have any position in time thank you.