Radio Recomendations

[Chasemmc]

Lost main vhf radio. It's old and so rather than repair thought I'd replace. All electronics are old, so no point in matching existing brands as I will probably change all over to Furano later this year. Recomendations, opinions, comments?

[Pascal]

I m a big fan of Icom. I have a pair of m330 on my 53, with build in GPS for DSC. Good basic VHF

I replaced one of the older POS Raymarine on the 116 I run with an M510. Nice flashy and fancy but I rarely use any of the advanced features.

I ve had to use other brands on various boats over the years, the worst were Raymarine where even the power button was hard to figure out on some models

[rwaldrop13]

I had Standard Horizon on Pau Hana (fixed VHF), and a Cobra handheld. I took the handheld with me when we evacuated for the hurricane. Left on for 4 days, and battery barely dropped. Standard Horizon are readily available, I don't have experience with Icom. SH worked well for our trips.

[Boatsb]

Don't buy anything that's not nmea2000 ready.

ICOM made the 506 for years. A great radio. The new 510 has its issues.

The 330 is not nmea2000 capable.

[jmooney]

I have a pair of Icom 604s . No problems with them .

[jim rosenthal]

I have had both ICOM and Standard. Both excellent. I would not have anything else.

[metama]

NEMA 2000 WITH matching equipment. I thought NEMA 2000 would work universally and not of the advanced features really work between Raymarine and Simrad, and no dice. (Even though both have products at the same production line). You want AIS and Radio and charts to work, it's easier with one brand.

[Pascal]

Not sure why you d want the VHF to be networked. Most have built in GPS nowadays for just a few bucks extra. I m just not a big fan of connecting everything just for the sake of it. For ais, you just add an ais box hooked up to your MFDs

[bigbill]

i have the 506 with ais. it comes in handy around commercial traffic to identify them in advance when you cant see them around bends in the waterway or around islands and such. it is hooked to nema 2000 so all info pops up on my mfd.

[zigzag930]

Most recently I installed an Icom 605 with AIS. 1st one had issues, but it was replaced by ICOM and the new one is ok so far. I also have another ICOM model 330 on the FB. Nice radio as well. The 605 has NMEA 2K and it is integrated with my Garmin, Furuno and PC systems. Nice to have the AIS data on all chart plotters and radars for sure.

On other boats I have used various VHF, but very much liked the Standard Horizon products. Never an issue with them. Clear speakers, so easy to hear with little distortion.

Biggest gripe I have with most the new radios is the single button/dial for volume and squelch. I prefer two separate dials for that, but guess it's a thing of the past.