marine radio--Is a portable ok??????

[tom]

Never had a marine radio----looking at buying a hand held- will it work ok??? Thanks for the help

[punch1]

Tom, generally portable marine radios have a considerablly less transmitting and/or receiving radius compared to a 25 watt fixed mount VHF radio.

If it were me and I was fishing any of the Great Lakes or other bigger bodies of water, I would get the fixed mount radio without hesitation. Your life could depend on it.

If you just plan on using it to catch some reports and to have communications on smaller bodies of water and want the portability then a portable would probably be the way to go.

Give us some more details on where and what you want to do with it and I'm sure you'll get all the help you ned here. Good luck!

Pat Wunsch

"You should have been here last week!"

[Bobr]

Its better than nothing at all. Punch has it right if you are fishing big water get the 25 watt perm mount.

[mmillelacs]

i have a pair of the hand held 5 watt humming bird vhf radios. they do work well but the range is very limited. I have a place on the north shore of mille lacs and i can transmit and recieve clearly to about a mile and a half tops, 2 miles if my wife actually gets out of the chair and stands on the shoreline. For the difference in price, if i would do it over i would get the 25 watt with the 8 foot antennae. 2 25 watt units, both with 8 foot antennaes, can communicate clearly from almost one end of mille lacs to the other, (about 23 miles at its widest)

[TK_551]

Generally speaking, the rule of thumb is a mile a watt. A VHF Portable then should transmit 5 miles--that is usually not the case--more like 2 miles in most cases. Go with the fix mount as the other posts state.

Tom
#551

[AfterDawn]

Marine radio frequencies operate basically "line of site". The 8 ft. antenna gets you that much higher....

Dave