5 watt handheld tranceivers. Question. What to buy?

[riverkeeper]

Hello, I hope you can help me in choosing. I am unsure of what tranceivers to purchase.

I am a volunteer with the Maritime Volunteer Service, (M.V.S.) on the RiverThames in London. We mostly do saftey boating most of the time, giving cover for rowing marathons and races and boat regattas.

But occasionally we are asked to help in emergancys, like flooding, boating accidents. collisions, polution spills and possibly plagues quarantene zones.

We basicly provide a third line back up emergancy service, carrying on the duties left for us by the royal navy auxilary service. (R.N.X.S)

The R.N.X.S was shut down by goverment due to M.O.D defence cuts, so it reformed itself as the M.V.S as a registered charity and operated that way.

So perhaps you guys can help? What good cheap radios shall we buy?

We need to buy some handheld radios that transmit quite far in emergancys. We mostly are on the River Thames but not always. We would like somthing that we can use in a built up area, especialy when the mobile phone networks get overloaded or shut down, like on the 7th July london terror attacks.

Im pretty new to ham radio, but have owned c.b's in the past in the eighties and have my V.H.F short range radio operators licence, but we cant use v.h.f for basic non river chit chat and organisation procedures.

So we are looking for a powerfull, cheap, sturdy handset to use, that could tie in with a base unit

You guys seem to know alot about handhelds, and i would like to ask your advice.

Any help will be greatfully returned and if you like boats or boating then a trip with us down the River Thames can be arranged.

I basicly want to discuss rigs suited to our purpose and maybe some technical advise.

I hope you can help and advise.

thanks,
riverkeeper.

[MikeSE9]

I take it you would like to stay legal, as you have a VHF operators licence. And work for the Maritime Volunteer Service?

[riverkeeper]

Yes, and hopfully have powerfull handheld trancievers. If one or two was slipped in with extra power wattage and external arial, i doubt it would be a problem, especialy if it was an emergancy.

The thing is i dont even know what frequency to pick. And as for handsets, well, i dont know where to start.

So hopfully you chaps can advise and we could pick a handset and frequency for our unit.

I dont mind buying chineese tranceivers, as it could keep the cost down, but yet still dont know what model to choose.

Perhaps we could have a base relay station to help boost the power also.

As i said, i am just a novice with little knowledge of tranceivers.

I do hope we can chew it over and settle on a decent system.

Thanks.

[Scott_93]

I'd probably get yourself some Icom or other marine band VHF radio gear to use whilst on the water and also get a UK light licence which allows the use of 7 VHF frequencies for business and charity comms (as you would put "chit chat") I would then have these channels programmed into your marine band radios as a "private" or "PBR" channel. That way you have both worlds of being able to use marine VHF and your own private channels at other times when it is not appropriate to use marine VHF.

The Icom IC-M87 is probably best for this use: SailGB Icom
Another option is to use the vertex/standard version of this radio: Standard Horizon Yachtbits

Of course these radios are on the rather expensive side of things, and as I do believe that a PBR radio can be used on the marine band with the appropriate license then I would also be inclined to buy a few standard VHF PBR radio's and have a few VHF marine channels programmed in, like 16,67,73 and any others you use.

As for a fixed radio (base or boat) I'd probably go with a standalone VHF marine radio and a PMR radio such as a Vertex 4200 VHF or Whatever of your choice programmed with the same PBR channels as your handhelds.

It is also advisable to contact a local PMR supplier as they will make the license and the programming of the equipment much easy.

Scott.

[fez]

I dont mind buying chineese tranceivers, as it could keep the cost down, but yet still dont know what model to choose.

In an emergency I wouldn't like to rely on the chineese type radios such as the puxing etc.

I would look into getting some Marine VHF waterproof handhelds and maybe some mobile radios for base/mobile depending if the marine VHF license allows this.

[riverkeeper]

Thanks. Yeah, we got some handheld and fixed VHF marine radios, I did'nt know one could get other non marine channels programes in.

That realy sounds like the way to go, as we would want to be in contact with V.T.S, (Vessel traffic system, people,) Down at the Thames barrier and the coastguard and other boats and ships.

Comunications are very strict on the marine frequencys, so adding some extra channels for organisation and chit chat and stuff would be an exelent way to go.

If there was a major accident on the Thames, channel 14 and channel 16 would be chockablock with transmitions. That it would make sensable comunication nearly impossable.

It would be great to have a channel added that we could use as one of our own.

So for the big question, how do we go about getting a few more channels added to our existing VHF marine handsets and fixed transcievers?

Do you know anyone who could do it for us?

Thanks for the exelent idea. It realy is the one.

[riverkeeper]

Thanks for the above links guys, i had a look and they look great.

Is it possable to program our existing VHF marine radio's with the P.B.R channels or do I have to buy special Icom or vertex/standard VHF/PBR tranceivers?

We have some VHF marine radios already and we could do without spending more money, as we have to insure our boats this year.

[Scott_93]

Thanks for the above links guys, i had a look and they look great.

Is it possable to program our existing VHF marine radio's with the P.B.R channels or do I have to buy special Icom or vertex/standard VHF/PBR tranceivers?

We have some VHF marine radios already and we could do without spending more money, as we have to insure our boats this year.

It depends what radios they are, some allow you too program more channels into them, some not. If you can get the model numbers or a few piccies of the radios you use and post them up on here so we can see them and see if it's a possibility. It may also be an idea to speak to OfCom about the idea of using some of the "private" marine channels (ie non allocated UK marine channels that are allowed for some licensed private marine radios), this is what the RNLI do.

Scott .