I am part of a non profit Dive Rescue and Recovery Unit in WI. On our smaller boat we just have an Icom412 marine radio, then someone has to remember to bring a handheld county radio. I'm wondering if there's a marine radio that can be programmed to do both? Or a small/low profile vhf radio that can withstand boat things? County uses vhf 154/155.
Thanks in advance
Talk to the County, or whoever handles your radios.
Sounds like you are talking about a fixed mount radio. I'm not aware of any purely VHF marine fixed mount radios that have the ability to be programmed with LMR frequencies.
There -are- some commercial LMR radios that have the necessary FCC Part 80 certifications that can be programmed with your county's frequencies as well as the Marine VHF frequencies.
This gets a little complex, though. To program marine frequencies into an LMR radio, the tech needs to have an FCC GROL license if you want to toe the line. Also, the LMR radios won't have some of the features a traditional Marine VHF radio will have, like DCS, etc.
I'd look at something like a Kenwood NX-3720 properly mounted/protected. Talk to the county and see if their radio shop has a recommendation. There are other suitable radios from Harris, Kenwood, Motorola, etc. but they can get expensive. Sometimes it's good to keep this as two separate radios since it prevents a single failure taking out all your communications.
