marine radio question?

[cold beer]

I know I ask you guys a lot of questions and yalls help is always appreciated. I am needing to purchase a marine radio. What's yalls opinion on what I should buy? I mainly fish the Galveston Bay complex. I don't go offshore. Is a hand held good enough or should I purchase a mounted one? Just looking for something that is reliable if I should get in trouble and need Coast Guard assistance. Thanks.

[plugger]

Sorry , I'm no help .

[Ibtsoom]

You can get a decent water resistant VHF on eBay for a reasonable price. I've had both - if you have room to mount an antenna on the boat get one you mount. If not, the handheld one will be fine.

[JT]

A cell phone works damm good too

[SCHU]

Cell phone for local calls if not offshore. how would you contact CG in emergency? 911? Or tape number on boat/cell phone contacts? Good point. think I'll do that! I may have a VHF with antennae, will see if it works and post up here. How soon do you need it?

[coachlaw]

I've done a lot of research on this. When I have some discretionary funds, this is the one I'll be ordering. It's got good reviews and seems perfect for inshore.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001J5MQ20/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pd_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=37WGXLTNA898D&coliid=I3TH3939N5MGH8

[Robalo]

Inshore, a cell works just fine. I'd get a waterproof 5 watt handheld if I had to have one. I think you'll find it just sits in the boat-I've never used my vhf inshore cause my cell phone works.

[Jerkyourcroaker]

I am about to pull the trigger on this one. In my opinion, handheld is better than a fixed mount on an inshore boat. If you go in the water, you can take the radio with you (it floats, waterproof, etc.).

The one I picked has DSC - Digital Selective Calling. DSC is a one button emergency transmit feature - you push the button and it sends your unique radio number and GPS position to DSC equipped radios in the area. DSC is monitored by the USCG and they will respond to the distress signal and know where to look.

It may be overkill for an inshore boat but I file this under - 'rather have it and not need it......'

All I need now is a boat to ride in with my fancy radio.

JYC

Uniden MHS135DSC

[Oleander Kayaker]

I have a Standard Horizon HX370S Handheld, they can be had for about $150 on Ebay. I stow it in the boat and the kayak.

It does allow re-programming and I've set some of the memories for out of marine band use, into the ham radio frequencies as well. The local tech rep, gave me a copy of the tech software.

For inshore, I also pack a cell phone.

[Termo]

Standard horizon is the one I had on my last boat. Not much use for one nowadays unless you're going offshore and out of phone range or you just want to listen in to the Vietnamese shrimpers on the emergency channels.

[JFD94]

I prefer a hand held VHV. Never had to use it but nice to know I have it in case I'm in trouble and my cell's not working. I fish inshore and nearshore. I prefer the handheld so that I can take it while I'm kayaking and not just on the boat and in case my boat's going down and I need to abandon ship. I had a Uniden for the past ten years that worked fine but I just had to replace, got a 6 watt Cobra Marine. If you're getting a handheld, get a submersible one that preferably floats. This ones got some cool features like Bluetooth connection for your cell but I don't think I'll use that. Just need it for emergency transmissions and getting whatever BS the weather service is predicting on their channel. I'll usually have it scanning channels 16 & 9 for distress calls while I'm out too. If I'm just stranded I use my cell to call someone to pull me in but if no one picked up or it was an emergency, I'd use my radio for that.