"Steve" wrote in
:

Here is the problem, the Icom clone software that is available seems
to be purely for the ham bands and would prohibit tuning to any of the
Marine freq..


That's because it isn't legal and Icom doesn't want to go to court to
defend itself. Only "type accepted" commercial gear is allowed on the
marine bands, except if you declare an emergency.

Anyone can own a ham radio transceiver. That's not illegal unless you
transmit on any frequency you are not licensed for. Before 9/11 and the
Patriot Act, you got a slap on the wrist. Now, unlicensed operation can be
considered an act of terrorism if you **** 'em off bad enough, with some
serious jail time!

I don't know of a single dyslexic who couldn't copy the stupid 5wpm current
code speed test for a General or Extra Class ham ticket. My record was a
7-year-old, who failed the first code test, not because he couldn't copy
the code at 13 WPM, but because his big 2nd Grade letters ran him out of
paper before the test was over! We gave him plenty of paper on the 2nd try
and he passed...(c; Novice at 7, General at 9, Extra Class at 11. He's a
broadcast engineer, now. Ham radio ruined his whole life!

I'd like to recommend the Icom M802 marine radio. If you hold down MODE +
TX + the number 2 key for 3 seconds it will doublebeep. This opens the
M802 transmitter to transmit from 1.5-30 Mhz inclusive. If you press the
RX key, the display and big knobs switch from channlized marine to general
coverage frequency mode. The left big knob positions the cursor on the
freq display while the right knob acts as a VFO adjusting frequency like an
old analog radio, in 100 Hz, 1Khz, 10Khz, 1 Mhz steps. It's a great ham
rig with this feature. It also has hundreds of user memories, in addition
to the fixed marine channel memories. There are banks of them.

It's a nice radio but must be kept totally DRY as it is not waterproof what
with the cooling fan sucking in sea air to cool the internal
heatsinks.....idiots.

--
Larry

You know you've had a rough night when you wake up and your outlined in
chalk.