I don't mean to 'bad mouth' a product or manufacturer on the bases of my
single bad experience.

However this is intended to be a 'heads up' if you have a Spectrum+ VHF.

I purchased this, features loaded, unit in Jan. '04 and discovered that
it was going dead within 30 min of power on. This only seemed to effect
the transmit and recieve, while the hailer/fog horn functions still seem
to work.

The only way I can determine if it is working or not, is to switch to
the weather channels and see if I can recieve any of these. If I don't
hear any transmition there, I can be certian that the unit won't work on
the working channels. At first I thought it was tempurature related
since the cabin temp was up over 80 most of the time that I notice it's
failure. However, it now goes dead even on a cool morning or evening.

Since I had purchased it from West Marine, I went to them to see about
an exchange, since I was in the middle of a local cruise. They were very
helpful and willing to exchange it but discovered that the Sepectrum+
had been discontinued and none of the stores had any left in stock. The
next closest available model was about $150 more, which I wasn't willing
to pay.

I contacted the manufactures repair facility and they indicated that
they would repair the old (new) unit if I would return it to them.

I retained the unit for limited useage (draw bridge) on my return trip
and will now ship it back to them..

My experience and warning, FWIW.

Steve
s/v Good Intentions