Marine band radio

Any of you have a particular favorite marine band that you use on your rig? And what style antenna do you use for best range?

I currently run a raytheon 45 with an 8ft fiberglass ant. It works great for me. No problems. If you plan on fishing rough water make sure you get a good mount. I run a stainless steel ratchet mount.

I think westmarine has the ray’s on sale right now for $150

http://www.westmarine.com

Good Luck

Jason

Thanks Jason,

I have heard good things about the Ray45. My Apelco is going to get a back seat this season. The output is signal is weak.

I thought that Apelico had been bought by Ratheon and the Apelico 45 was the same thing as a Ratheon 45. I picked an Apelico 45 at Gander Mountain on sale a couple years back. They were selling them cheap as the box said Apelico and the new ones said Raytheon. I may be wrong.

Another thing, VHF is a line of sight type of transmission, the taller the antenna the further you can transmit/recieve. Go with the 8ft antenna, shakespeare makes quite a few different ones. Personally I would buy the better one with the heavy duty ferule. Thats where the antenna screws to the mount. Thats the part that takes the beating on rough days.

DeeZee I have a apelco 8500 series on the boat and have it hooked up to a 3 ft steel antenna. It works real well on Mille Lacs and with the 8ft glass antenna on the house I can be any place on the lake and reach back and forth…..I have a cheaper SMR in the house and it’s ok, but not the radio the apelco is. I think the rayathon and apelco are one of the same?

Bob,

I second the 3 foot whip working pretty well on Mille Lacs. Used the one in Cabela’s (The buy any radio on this page and get it for $19.99) I could talk to an 8 foot antenna 6-10 miles no problem. Probably more.

I’ll also give a thumbs up to the Humminbird VH-5 hand held. 4-6 miles back to an 8 footer. 3-4 miles between the two hand helds with very clear transmit/recieve. All weather stations and full programable scan. Has it all.

Very good back up unit.

Thanks guys,

I will be checking them out real soon. Not sure what happened to my Apelco. It was a great unit for a couple years and then last year I was really having problems reaching even close range boaters. So I went and used a buddy’s output signal tester. They are normally suppose to be around 25 watts output? Mine was pretty weak and only kicking out around 8-10 watts. I even hooked it up all by itself to the battery in case of a bad connection and still the same results.

I’ve had Shakespear, Uniden, Humminbird (my favorite but they don’t make it anymore). I think I’m going with a SMR this time around.

They all seemed to work fine. In my opinion, the antenna is the most important component…….I would skimp on the radio but not the antenna. I’ve always had Shakespear antennas and they work great. The longer the better. I use the 3 footer which works OK, but if I was going to use the radio alot I would go with an 8 footer.

Try to keep your microphone dry, most radio problems I’ve seen and heard of are caused by moisture in the mic. I use a watersafe cell phone bag or a plastic sandwich bag over the mic in downpours. Also mounting it under the dash or in a compartment will help keep it dry.

Thanks Eric,

Good idea on the moisture issue. This is something that I have not payed enough attention to.