VHF question

Looking at the Cobra 6-watt handheld VHF. Their website says 5-watts is good for 7 mile range to another handheld or 20 miles to a shore station. On the lake we frequent in Canada, the resort is on a centrally located island that’s within 5 miles as the crow flies from pretty much anywhere. Only reason we’d be getting the radio is to communicate with the resort in an emergency.

There are several islands on this lake. The islands don’t feature big elevation changes, just your typical Canadian Shield island-dotted lake. My concern is that the signal won’t carry through the islands. Anyone have experience they can share with a similar situation?

The other option I’m looking at is like a zoleo, which can send text messages and distress signals. Similar price. Pros would be I could stay in touch with the wife. Cons would be I could stay in touch with the wife; and it’s also a less direct method of contacting the nearest source of help which is the resort.

From my experience the hand held units are about useless. I used to have one and there were cases you could see the boat you were trying to talk to and nothing would go through. There’s no substitute for the base unit and tall antenna in my opinion.

That’s a concern. They do make 3w handheld models and I can imagine those would be pretty rough but was hoping for better with the 6w. I don’t really want to wire up the base unit transceiver, my boat is small and not suited well for it. Appreciate the feedback.

The 6w cobra has thousands of reviews on Amazon and 4.5 stars average so they must work at some level?

They ain’t too bad to install really . I have a 4 foot wire antenna on my boat and it works good for a couple miles . Kinda nice when your fishing with another boat that has one so you can relay info back and forth .

Talked to the resort last night and it turns out they don’t monitor the VHF as i had thought. So we’ll be looking at a zoleo or bivy stick or something similar.

Ask the resort if they monitor any frequencies at all.
I’ve been at some resorts that keep solar powered radios in their remote cabins, some are CB radios.

There’s some pretty cheap shortwave HAM handhelds. Technically you shouldn’t broadcast without a HAM operators license. The test isn’t too hard. But, you can scan the same channels the resort uses. If you go the HAM route, at least get and study an operators handbook to keep yourself out of trouble. In an emergency situation or a zombie apocalypse I wouldn’t worry about a license. But even then, it’s good to know & use HAM protocols/etiquette.