VHF Marine Band Radio Roundup 2016-2017

VHF Marine Band radios, protocol, radio communication theory, practical advice; AIS; DSC; MMSI; EPIRB.
jimh
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VHF Marine Band Radio Roundup 2016-2017

Postby jimh » Mon Feb 15, 2016 9:56 am

VHF Marine Band Radio Roundup 2016

Here is a quick overview of 2016 to 2017 VHF Marine Band radios from selected manufacturers. Note that all of these radios, by FCC regulation, are Digital Selective Calling (DSC) radios qualified to Class-D DSC rating. They have to meet that criterion to be sold in the USA. I have added three additional considerations in choosing a radio that will differentiate the many models available:

--N2K: does the radio have a NMEA-2000 network interface? Historically a radio would provide a NMEA-0183 interface for connecting it to other vessel electronics, but in the past two years a number of radios have emerged with NMEA-2000 interface connections;

--AIS: does the radio have an integral Automatic Identification System receiver? An AIS receiver can be very useful when operating a boat in areas with large commercial vessel traffic. Large commercial vessels are required to transmit their position and course information via AIS, and awareness of these vessel from AIS can greatly benefit collision avoidance. AIS can also provide some entertainment value if you are a ship-watcher;

--GPS: does the radio have an integral GPS or GNSS receiver? Connecting a DSC radio to a GNSS receiver enables transmission of precise position reports to other vessels and is particularly important in any distress alert transmission; every DSC radio should be interfaced to a GPS or GNSS receiver. By having an internal GPS receiver, the need for any interface to other devices is eliminated.

A comparison table of radios from a number of manufacturers is given below. This survey does not include every possible radio, as there are a few other radio manufacturers and some house brands that are omitted. The prices listed are approximate retail prices, typically what is called the minimum advertised price or MAP, or in some cases the manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP). With careful shopping a better price may be found. The MSRP is often very much different from actual retail offers from vendors using discounted prices. Some manufacturers fail to list an MSRP on their own websites, making the MSRP somewhat speculative, and one must rely on the advertised prices. Prices are always in flux and can also be modified by sales incentive offers such as rebate offers or bundling offers.

Current as of April 2017:
BRAND, MODEL        N2K /AIS/ GPS   PRICE

ICOM M330 No / No / No $200
ICOM M330G No / No / Yes $260
ICOM M324 No / No / No $200
ICOM M324G No / No / Yes $260
ICOM M424 No / No / No $270
ICOM M424G No / No / Yes $330
ICOM M506 No / No / No $450
ICOM M506 Yes/ No / No $550
ICOM M506 Yes/ Yes/ No $650
ICOM M605 Yes/ Yes/ Yes $800

LOWRANCE LINK-5 No / No / No $180 (Obsolete)
LOWRANCE LINK-6 No / No / No $190
LOWRANCE LINK-8 Yes/ Yes/ No $300

SIMRAD RS12 Yes/ No / No $200 (Obsolete)
SIMRAD RS20 Yes/ No / No $230
SIMRAD RS35 Yes/ Yes/ No $350

RAYMARINE RAY50 Yes/ No / No $290
RAYMARINE RAY60 Yes/ No / No $350
RAYMARINE RAY70 Yes/ Yes/ Yes $700

STD-HORIZ GX1300 No / No / No $150
STD-HORIZ GX1600 No / No / No $170
STD-HORIZ GX1700 No / No / Yes $250
STD-HORIZ GX2200 No / Yes/ Yes $400
STD-HORIZ GX6000 Yes/ Yes/ No $450

GARMIN VHF100 No / No / No $250* (Obsolete)
GARMIN VHF110 Yes/ No / No $280*
GARMIN VHF200 Yes/ No / No $400* (Obsolete)
GARMIN VHF210 Yes/ No / No $370
GARMIN VHF210AIS Yes/ Yes/ No $600*
GARMIN VHF300 Yes/ No / No $700*
GARMIN VHF300AIS Yes/ Yes/ No $1000*

* prices are MAP unless marked with asterisk and then are MSRP
** not yet available for sale in USA

I was anticipating that there might be some new products in this segment introduced at the Miami International Boat Show 2016. Although I was not able to attend the show in person, I had a correspondent or two there looking for new radios. So far no new marine band radio products have been reported.

Among these manufacturers, Standard-Horizon remains alone as the only maker not offering a radio with a NMEA-2000 interface. The value of NMEA-2000 interfacing in a radio is the much simpler means of interconnecting the radio to a chart plotter and GNSS receiver, assuming they also have an NMEA-2000 interface. In Standard-Horizon's defense, their radios do have NMEA-0183 interfaces, and those interfaces follow the NMEA recommended differential-pair signal approach. Interfacing with NMEA-0183 can be a bit tedious, but inasmuch as this only needs to be done once, it is really not an insurmountable task. Standard-Horizon radios are perhaps the easiest NMEA-0183 devices to interface with other NMEA-0183 devices because of their clear documentation, use of differential signals, an extensive knowledge base of interconnections, and good technical support. I also believe that Standard-Horizon is working on adding NMEA-2000 to their radios. UPDATE: Standard-Horizon has announced a new radio, model GX6000, which will have a NMEA-2000 interface, but this radio is still not available for sale (as of February 2017).

The most versatile radio remains the Raymarine RAY70, having all three add-on elements, that is, NMEA-2000, AIS, and GNSS, however its price reflects the triple-combination of features.

The best bargain is probably the Lowrance LINK-8, providing NMEA-2000 and AIS for under $300, and often well under $300 in competitive pricing. Initial versions of the LINK-8 had a reputation for some flakey behavior, but later revisions seem to have cured those problems.

If you don't need AIS (and many inland boaters do not need it as there are few commercial vessels on inland lakes), the best choice may be the $250 Standard-Horizon GX1700. It has in its own GPS receiver, which makes this radio a stand-alone digital selective calling distress alerting system. You won't need to interface the GX1700 to anything to transmit a DSC distress alert with your vessel position from GPS with the GX1700. The ICOM M324G is similarly priced ($260), if you are a fan of ICOM radios.

If you have a chart plotter with a GNSS receiver and the skill to interface via NMEA-0183, the Standard-Horizon GX1300 at $150 may be the radio for you.

To offer my own preferences, I tend to lean toward radios made by radio-only or radio-mostly manufacturers, and they are ICOM and Standard-Horizon. I also have noted that some of the newest chart plotters have begun to omit any NMEA-0183 interface, and must be connected only via NMEA-2000. If you have such a chart plotter, the choice of a radio to interconnect with it will be limited to only those radios with NMEA-2000.

If readers are aware of any significant new radios or big price changes, please comment in a reply to this thread.

andrey320
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Re: VHF Marine Band Radio Roundup 2016

Postby andrey320 » Mon Feb 15, 2016 7:32 pm

Just bought a Lowrance Link-8 for $230 total from TheGPSStore.com. That's cheaper than I'd be paying for an AIS receiver.

Great summary of the available VHF radios by Jim!

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Re: VHF Marine Band Radio Roundup 2016

Postby jimh » Wed Feb 17, 2016 10:03 am

As noted above, some VHF Marine Band digital selective calling (DSC) radios have their own internal global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receiver. The value of having a digital selective calling (DSC) radio with its own GNSS receiver is in two areas:

--a DSC radio with its own GNSS receiver is a complete system for initiating a distress alert call that will send a precise position in the distress alert message; this can be valuable in a situation in which other vessel electronics fail to function; if your radio depends on some other device to provide the vessel position, that other device must also be working to send a distress alert with your vessel position;

--interfacing a DSC radio to other vessel electronics is apparently not done by a great majority of boaters, based on the results announced by the Coast Guard of the USA (USCG) a few years ago. The USCG said 90-percent of the DSC distress alert calls they received lacked a vessel position in the message, that is, the DSC radios were not interfaced to a GNSS receiver. By getting a DSC radio with its own GNSS you will avoid the problem of having to interface an external GNSS to the radio.

To put a dollar value on this, you can approximate the amount of time it will take to perform the interface of the radio to some external device that can supply vessel position and compare it to the added cost of getting a radio with its own GNSS. You cannot really put a dollar value on not having the radio interfaced in some way to a GNSS receiver. That is just complete stupidity. The USCG is spending over $1-billion to listen for your emergency DSC call with a position report, so you might as well spend an extra $75 to send one when your boat is in an emergency situation.

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Re: VHF Marine Band Radio Roundup 2016

Postby jimh » Thu Feb 18, 2016 8:40 am

All of the prices I used were generally listed as the minimum advertised price or MAP. I changed the heading in the listing to reflect the MAP prices. As I mentioned, a careful shopper can always find better prices or take advantage of rebate offers. Standard-Horizon usually has a rebate incentive on their radios and you might save an extra $20 to $40. My goal was not to track down the best price, but to compare the features and suggest a nominal price range.

Some of the more expensive radios have additional features that have not been characterized in this survey, such as hailers, fog signals, remote microphone features, wireless remote microphones, multiple remote microphones, internal chart plotters and navigation computers, and so on. The three features, NMEA-2000, AIS, and GNSS, are what I consider the most significant variation among the models.

I added three more radios to the survey, two ICOM radios and one STANDARD-HORIZON. I also clarified the price data as either advertised price or list price.

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Re: VHF Marine Band Radio Roundup 2016

Postby jimh » Wed Aug 17, 2016 8:57 pm

Please note that as of July 2016, none of the ICOM radios listed above are available for sale in the U.S.A due to a problem with their compliance with mandatory FCC specifications for DSC features. For more on this problem see

ICOM DSC Radio Not Fully Compliant
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1064

jimh
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Re: VHF Marine Band Radio Roundup 2016

Postby jimh » Tue Sep 13, 2016 11:25 am

For an example of the very low cost of a modern VHF Marine Band radio qualified to DSC CLASS-D rating, look to the Standard-Horizon GX1300B radio. The typical selling price of the radio is $124, and there is a $30 manufacturer's rebate offer in effect. This produces a net cost of this modern radio of $94--a bargain if there ever was one.

With a modern and very competent VHF Marine Band radio, fully qualified to CLASS-D DSC rating, available at a cost of only $94 there cannot be any economic reason to avoid equipping a boat with such a radio.

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Re: VHF Marine Band Radio Roundup 2016

Postby jimh » Fri Nov 04, 2016 10:02 am

Updated initial listing to include the newest Garmin radios.

msirof2001
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Re: VHF Marine Band Radio Roundup 2016

Postby msirof2001 » Tue Apr 04, 2017 12:04 am

jimh wrote:Please note that as of July 2016, none of the ICOM radios listed above are available for sale in the U.S.A due to a problem with their compliance with mandatory FCC specifications for DSC features. For more on this problem see

ICOM DSC Radio Not Fully Compliant
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1064


JimH- It appears that at least the M605 is available in the USA as of February 2017. Here is the Icom-America press release:

http://www.icomamerica.com/en/downloads ... 2-6-17.pdf

Plus I saw it available on West Marine's website.
Current: 2017 Everglades 295cc, Previous1: 1995 Boston Whaler Outrage 21, Previous2: 1974 Sevylor Caravelle 3-man liferaft.

jimh
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Re: VHF Marine Band Radio Roundup 2016

Postby jimh » Tue Apr 04, 2017 8:45 am

Thanks for the information on the ICOM M605.

Re my comment from eight months ago you quote above that certain ICOM radios not were for sale in USA in August 2016: if you follow the linked article which is recommended for further information on that topic which followed the status of the radios with frequent updates, you will find a follow-up posting a month later that announced the radios were back on the market in September 2016. The listing of radios in this article was also edited at that time to reflect the change in status, so the main listing has always reflected the actual status.

I also now just edited the listing to show several models which previously were not available are now for sale: ICOM M605, GARMIN 110, GARMIN 210.