Without pictures, kevin will not be able to understand much about it.

"Lord Reginald Smithers" Ask me about my driveway leading up to my manor.
wrote in message . ..
Kevin,
You may want to read this post.


"Shortwave Sportfishing" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 08 Dec 2005 20:24:54 GMT, "Bill McKee"
wrote:


"Harry Krause" wrote in message
...
wrote:
Bryan wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...
Bryan wrote:
Any handheld VHF recommendations?

Looking for quality, functionality, affordability, ...

Which and why? And best recent price you've seen?

The internal electronics are all about the same, regardless of
brand
name.

That changes the equation a bit.

Almost any major brand will be built well enough to withstand
normal
use and even some abuse, so you're down to deciding how many, and
which, bells and whistles you want and which models are the most
ergonomically usable for you as an individual. Range and the degree
of
water-resistance will also be major considerations.

My thoughts: Is this handheld going into a ditch bag, or intended
for
use merely as a backup to a hard-wired system? In that case, the
fewer
the gizmos, gadgets, fancy tricks,
and electro magics built in- the better. You wouldn't want to be
without a radio in an emergency because some peripheral,
non-essential
toy feature crapped out and took another circuit down in the
process.

If the handheld is going to be the primary radio aboard the boat,
you
might want to opt for
some of the fancier features.......but the previous paragraph could
also apply just as
easily in that case.

Primary and ditch. Need dependable 30 NM range maximum.

Won't happen without an external antenna.


You won't get a "dependable" 30 nautical mile range with a handheld,
period.

The CG should be able to talk with a handheld 30 miles away. Their
antennas
are tall and they have more power available. It is amazing at times how
far
away from the CG transmitter, you get reception. North of the Golden
Gate,
you get CG Monterey transmissions. You do not hear the boat, but the CG
is
loud and clear. And that is at least 60 miles distant.

It's not that unusual for you to hear USCG because they use 1KW
transmitters on tall towers with phased antennas. However, talking to
a handheld 30 miles out defies physics and the inverse square law with
regard to energy in free space.

There is a HUGE difference between talking to a boat with some height
on it's antenna ABOVE the surface of the water and attempting a chat
with somebody using a 5 watt handheld ON the surface of the water.

Without getting into a whole host of technical issues, just wave
action alone would make it impossible with the signal being
obstructed, antenna orientation with reference to the body and then
there about a bizzillion technical issues like signal ground effect,
small antennas, yada, yada, yada...

In short, it's not only a dumb idea to only rely on a handheld that
far out, it's impossible from a technical standpoint.