Hand-held VHF with AIS

This is a really neat idea – an AIS receiver built into a hand-held VHF radio with Class H DSC functionality. It’s ideal for smaller RIBs, racing keelboats and open dayboats that don’t have built-in electronics, but where you would routinely carry a hand held VHF.

Obviously in an ideal world you would aim to avoid being in an area of high traffic in poor visibility in such a boat. However, in a typical season there’s always a risk of unexpected poor visibility. It doesn’t need to be full-on fog to create a problem; rain that reduces visibility to less than a mile won’t enable you to cross the Solent’s shipping channels in safety.

Of course, not all vessels are required to transmit AIS signals, so no receiver will be able to see all the boats in the murk. However, it will show all commercial traffic above 300 tonnes and all fishing vessels over 15m, as well as any pleasure craft with AIS B transponders. An AIS target call function enables a DSC call to be easily initiated with a target vessel. The main DSC distress alert is raised via a distress button on the rear of the unit.

ICOM’s IC-M94DE also has six watts of transmit power, a class-leading 1,500mW of audio output with enhanced sound quality and noise cancelling technology.

With a normal duty cycle battery life is 10 hours – plenty for most days on the water.

The unit also has a GPS receiver and navigation features including up to 50 user-defined waypoints. It’s submersible to a depth of one metre for 30 minutes. When in the water the screen, backlit keys and distress button flash to aid the location of the unit at night.

Price: £350.

icomuk.co.uk