On Larry W4CSC wrote:
John R. Campbell wrote:
If travelling in a group of boats, consider some
FRS radios which don't have much reach but don't
need much when travelling close enough together.
Less interference on the marine channels and the
like... but it'd be *real* nice if some of the
bridges down here were monitoring something other
than VHF ch9. (These FRS rigs are very handy at
other times, too, like w/ multiple cars, visiting
Home Depot or Lowes and the like.)

The best feature of FRS radios is you can say whatever
you like without some kilocycle cop/boater or CG guy
bitching at you to get the hell off his channel....(c;

Sorry, I was trying for an "almost British" level
of understatement in my post... and you said, in
plain language, what I was trying to say in a more
obscure form.

(shakes head)

Granted, I try for laughs...

The point, really, is that FRS radios have such a
low wattage that there's not much of a likelihood
of interfering with others. The low costs (take a
look around a CostCo or Best Buy or some such) and
you'll not that the prices are also pretty low as
well-- so losing one over the side isn't the utter
disaster that a VHF hand-held would be.

Of course I don't personally know if FRS can even
be *licensed* for use outside the USA much less,
if usable, what the rules'd be.

Granted, you have to remember to use a *real* VHF
rig in order to hail others ... especially distress
calls.

Additionally, one suggestion: regular hand-held
scanners are available for a lot less than a "real"
VHF hand-held (especially if you only want to cover
the marine bands) so one of *those* scanner would
be handy for whoever is on communications watch.

The real point being is that there is other tech
out there that, while not tuned perfectly for the
marine environment, is fairly usable... and cheap
enough to more easily cope with replacements.

While it makes sense to avoid "disposable tech", I
think there are times when you want to use it to
cut down on the "wear and tear" (of the PTT button?)
of the far more critical marine-grade tech.

Some tech obviously will not make the jump very
well to marine conditions... but finding the more
appropriate tech to carry over can be rather
entertaining to discover.

--
John R. Campbell Speaker to Machines soup at tampabay dot rr dot com
"Grace is sufficient so Joy was let go." - Heather L. Campbell
"Faith manages ... even though she didn't get promoted" - me
Why OS X? Because making Unix user-friendly was easier than debugging Windows