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How many of you fishing, carry a VHF radio? Realistically / real-world, do you know what you range is?
I thought it be a good addition to carrying a cell for general communication, so I got a Standard Horizon HX870 GPS handheld. Like it a lot! It's stated to be 6 watts, so perhaps my expectations were a little too high when I wasn't even able to key-up the local SeaTow ARC tower at just two miles away. Line of site, radio was on High output, ch 27. The little rubber-ducky just isn't up to the task. Finally got the tower to respond at about 1.3 miles, yet in all fairness, I have no idea how sensitive (signal strength) the automated system triggers on, aka who knows . . . a real person with squelch all the way off might have still heard me at the 2 mile point. So "as-is", that makes this little handheld nothing more that $200 "voicebox saver", as it's just going to be useful enough to avoid hollering across the water to the nearby boats, or my buddy just over at the next spot. :P
This is in no way a testament against the HX870, as it is a reality-check for handhelds in general. So, if you were like me and didn't know, I'm here to say that you are not going to get anywhere near the advertised range, not with that short little oem rubber duck antenna that is.
So I'm looking into antenna options. Do I get a gotty 6ft + telescoping replacement for the handheld, or attach a base-mount antenna to the ski wired back to the handheld?? Doesn't have to be attached all the time. . . maybe stow the antenna inside the hull, which can be rigged-up whenever needed. My goal here is just to have something comparable to a cell phone as far as range goes. Mainly for non-emergency, yet urgent communications - although these radios do have a distress button. So back to my original question, what range are you getting on what?
I thought it be a good addition to carrying a cell for general communication, so I got a Standard Horizon HX870 GPS handheld. Like it a lot! It's stated to be 6 watts, so perhaps my expectations were a little too high when I wasn't even able to key-up the local SeaTow ARC tower at just two miles away. Line of site, radio was on High output, ch 27. The little rubber-ducky just isn't up to the task. Finally got the tower to respond at about 1.3 miles, yet in all fairness, I have no idea how sensitive (signal strength) the automated system triggers on, aka who knows . . . a real person with squelch all the way off might have still heard me at the 2 mile point. So "as-is", that makes this little handheld nothing more that $200 "voicebox saver", as it's just going to be useful enough to avoid hollering across the water to the nearby boats, or my buddy just over at the next spot. :P
This is in no way a testament against the HX870, as it is a reality-check for handhelds in general. So, if you were like me and didn't know, I'm here to say that you are not going to get anywhere near the advertised range, not with that short little oem rubber duck antenna that is.
So I'm looking into antenna options. Do I get a gotty 6ft + telescoping replacement for the handheld, or attach a base-mount antenna to the ski wired back to the handheld?? Doesn't have to be attached all the time. . . maybe stow the antenna inside the hull, which can be rigged-up whenever needed. My goal here is just to have something comparable to a cell phone as far as range goes. Mainly for non-emergency, yet urgent communications - although these radios do have a distress button. So back to my original question, what range are you getting on what?
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