Sea Kayaking, Kayak Fishing: Submersible VHF Radios

One issue with many submersible vhfs is that they'll sink if you drop them overboard. Insert their optional alkaline battery trays -- a choice many make on extended trips after charging the lithium ion battery pack is no longer an option -- and even floating models will sink. Check your model's specs carefully.

Couple of reminders if you are thinking of buying a submersible vhf radio for sea kayaking or kayak fishing.

Be sure to buy a radio with multiple power output options. Don't skimp by trying to buy a radio that doesn't include WX (NOAA weather frequencies) channels. Buying a radio that includes channel scanning is also very useful, especially if you paddle at night or in fog and need to monitor both your working channel (72, say) and channel 16 for securite calls from other boaters.

When be sure to give your submersible vhf radio a mild shake before you broadcast. Water tends to collect in the slits in the faceplates of submersible VHF radios' speaker microphone ports. If you don't shake the water out, your voice (and what you hear) will be garbled.

If you're a saltwater sea kayaking or kayak fishing enthusiast, rinse your vhf radio in freshwater when you get home. Regularly inspect theradio's stainless steel contact points, i.e., the antenna port and contact points for the recharger, for discoloration or corrosion. If you discover either, rub off the fouling with a scotch brite pad.

Note the key icon in the display.The key means that the functions are locked. A lock button for functions (channel switching, volume and squelch control) is a good option to insist on.

If you don't have a VHF radio yet, see links below for audio files edited and transcribed from the US CoastGuard's media site. The files open a door on what VHF radio communications sound like, particularly on distress channel 16.

You can listen in on mayday calls -- a chilling mayday of an east coast United States (Long Island Sound, New York) scuba mayday, where the caller's understandable panic garbles communications. You can listen in as the captains of sinking boats do their best to provide broad local descriptors of their location.

Equally instructive, you can listen in on vhf radio pan-pan calls, when callers are asked to switch from channel 16 to channel 22A, as usual protocol, by Coast Guard VHF radio watchstanders.

To read more about sea kayaking and kayak fishing, see the content-rich blogs Sea Kayaking Dot Net and NorthAmerican Kayak Fishingnorthamericankayakfishing.blogspot.com.