Using Commercial Radios for Marine VHF

[fdscan]

Hi...

I thought this would be an interesting topic of debate. I've been boating a little bit recently and an idea popped up again in my head. I've always thought, theoretically, couldn't you use a VHF commercial radio as a marine radio? Are there any regulations preventing it? I would assume that marine radios are definitely the most optimized for the job, but if you had the right radio (with a big display), say an XTL or something, I think it would be neat to use them as a marine radio... They could serve as a multi-purpose radio too. You could program however many zones necessary for marine channels, another zone for ham, public safety monitoring and so on - all in one. You could even setup a scan list - which most marine radios don't do, with the exception of channel 16.

This was just an idea that's been floating around in my head for a while, I thought I'd bring it to the table. While this is in the air, how do you guys feel about using portable commercial radios for the same purpose? (on the water of course, whenever necessary).

 

[nd5y]

I've always thought, theoretically, couldn't you use a VHF commercial radio as a marine radio? Are there any regulations preventing it?

Any radio used on marine frequencies must be certificated for Part 80.

 

[rfradioconsult]

In addition Marine radios must be switchable to 25 Watts high power (max) and 1 Watt low power, marine channel spacing is 25 kHz, wide-band (5 kHz). Marine radios are relatively cheap, no need to stray to something else.

 

[fdscan]

Any radio used on marine frequencies must be certificated for Part 80.

OK that's probably what I was looking for. Thanks.

In addition Marine radios must be switchable to 25 Watts high power (max) and 1 Watt low power, marine channel spacing is 25 kHz, wide-band (5 kHz). Marine radios are relatively cheap, no need to stray to something else.

Yeah I see what you mean. I was just curious as to if it was legal/possible and now I know.

 

[W8RMH]

Also marine radios are required to monitor Channel 16 at all times. I don't know if commercial radios could do this.

 

[RKG]

Also marine radios are required to monitor Channel 16 at all times. I don't know if commercial radios could do this.

Not true.

 

[KD2DXF]

Or you could have both. A marine, part 80 certified, for your regular marine ops. And also a commercial rig, or amateur rig for your PS monitoring and amateur frequencies. just my thaught.

 

[gesucks]

Also marine radios are required to monitor Channel 16 at all times. I don't know if commercial radios could do this.

Not true, Please quote rule requiring

 

[gesucks]

Most modern Big Name VHF radios have Part 80.

XTL5000 is Part 80 and is legal to use as a Marine Radio

 

[mmckenna]

Also marine radios are required to monitor Channel 16 at all times. I don't know if commercial radios could do this.

Certain vessels are required to guard channel 16 at all times, but that requirement does not mean that it has to be one radio. The standard way of doing this is to have a second radio. Most of the newer marine VHF radios will do a "dual watch" function between whatever channel you are using and channel 16.

It is not a requirement that the radio have that function built in.

The newer Kenwood radios do part 90 and part 80, also.

 

[KI4VBR]

Not citing any rules here, however...... VHF 16 is a primary hailing & distress frequency. If you are not calling another boat and then moving off to a working channel, your transmission should begin with "pan pan pan", "security security security" or "Mayday Mayday Mayday" followed by your boat's name and the nature of your request.
I live on the coast near Clearwater, FL and constantly hear CG group St. Pete asking people to move off of 16 to a working channel. Unfortunately, some just ignore the request from CG and go on about their conversation.

I have actually seen this happen while docked up on Caladesi Island which is a fav spot for the cruising crowd. One of the boats called another boat (on 16) who was 3 slips down and had a 10 minute conversation!

As far as using commercial or ham radios modified for marine use, I am far from an expert so take my comments lightly and maybe find an authoritative source to further define the guidelines. I think you would be better off just using a cheap marine radio if you want to spend time monitoring whats going on out on the waterways.

The FCC wont accept a simple mod of disconnecting a surface mount chip/diode/trace or something like that. You have to go through the very detailed & expensive process of gaining type acceptance under FCC part 80 pertaining to "Stations In The Maritime".

§ 80.43 Equipment acceptable for licensing.
Transmitters listed in § 80.203 must be authorized for a particular use by the Commission based upon technical requirements contained in subparts E and F of this part, except for transmitters that are used on vessels in the Maritime Security Fleet and are deemed to satisfy all Commission equipment certification requirements pursuant to section 53108(c) of Title 46 of the United States Code.

Good luck with your VHF Marine endeavor.

Vince
KI4VBR - Palm Harbor, FL EL88ob
... -.-

 

[mmckenna]

True about Channel 16. Hailing should be done on 9 if at all possible, but people get forgetful, or just never bother to read the rules.

Modifying amateur equipment for VHF marine is not a proper way of doing it, but that isn't what the OP was talking about. He is talking about using a commercial VHF transceiver. That is legal if the radio has part 80 acceptance, which many do. This gives you the legal ability to do other things with the radio, including using it for Part 90 use and amateur radio use. While it is certainly not the cheapest way of getting a marine VHF radio, it does certainly allow one radio to fill many roles, which is a cost savings. If the OP was asking for the cheapest way to acquire a VHF marine radio, you would be correct.

 

[fdscan]

Or you could have both. A marine, part 80 certified, for your regular marine ops. And also a commercial rig, or amateur rig for your PS monitoring and amateur frequencies. just my thaught.

That works as well, I was just curious if, say a commercial radio could do all three, and the legality of the situation.

Also marine radios are required to monitor Channel 16 at all times. I don't know if commercial radios could do this.

Any commercial radio with a scan capability could.

Most modern Big Name VHF radios have Part 80.

XTL5000 is Part 80 and is legal to use as a Marine Radio

Funny... I actually just googled that before checking this thread again, and sure enough this was the second or third search result. I think an XTL5000 would be cool to use on a boat for all three purposes.

Not citing any rules here, however...... VHF 16 is a primary hailing & distress frequency. If you are not calling another boat and then moving off to a working channel, your transmission should begin with "pan pan pan", "security security security" or "Mayday Mayday Mayday" followed by your boat's name and the nature of your request.
I live on the coast near Clearwater, FL and constantly hear CG group St. Pete asking people to move off of 16 to a working channel. Unfortunately, some just ignore the request from CG and go on about their conversation.

I have actually seen this happen while docked up on Caladesi Island which is a fav spot for the cruising crowd. One of the boats called another boat (on 16) who was 3 slips down and had a 10 minute conversation!

As far as using commercial or ham radios modified for marine use, I am far from an expert so take my comments lightly and maybe find an authoritative source to further define the guidelines. I think you would be better off just using a cheap marine radio if you want to spend time monitoring whats going on out on the waterways.

The FCC wont accept a simple mod of disconnecting a surface mount chip/diode/trace or something like that. You have to go through the very detailed & expensive process of gaining type acceptance under FCC part 80 pertaining to "Stations In The Maritime".

§ 80.43 Equipment acceptable for licensing.
Transmitters listed in § 80.203 must be authorized for a particular use by the Commission based upon technical requirements contained in subparts E and F of this part, except for transmitters that are used on vessels in the Maritime Security Fleet and are deemed to satisfy all Commission equipment certification requirements pursuant to section 53108(c) of Title 46 of the United States Code.

Good luck with your VHF Marine endeavor.

Vince
KI4VBR - Palm Harbor, FL EL88ob
... -.-

Thanks for all the info. I have monitored channel 16 a little bit on the water at a somewhat major harbor/marine area, and quite honestly don't really hear much activity at all on it. I guess that means we're following the rules! Other than that... I don't do much marine monitoring. I was just curious if, say, a ham radio operator/scanning enthusiast could combine both of those and marine capabilities into a single commercial radio. Not necessarily myself, but I've been wondering about it for a while.

True about Channel 16. Hailing should be done on 9 if at all possible, but people get forgetful, or just never bother to read the rules.

Modifying amateur equipment for VHF marine is not a proper way of doing it, but that isn't what the OP was talking about. He is talking about using a commercial VHF transceiver. That is legal if the radio has part 80 acceptance, which many do. This gives you the legal ability to do other things with the radio, including using it for Part 90 use and amateur radio use. While it is certainly not the cheapest way of getting a marine VHF radio, it does certainly allow one radio to fill many roles, which is a cost savings. If the OP was asking for the cheapest way to acquire a VHF marine radio, you would be correct.

Yes, that's a pretty important point. It's not the most cost-effective of getting JUST a marine radio, but it definitely pays off if you're using multiple services with one transceiver. Think about it, you're paying 75-100 for a marine radio, another few hundred for a mobile ham radio, and another few hundred for a scanner! Vs paying for one single commercial radio, prices varying. Not to mention, a single antenna setup. I guess it's a matter of preference.

 

[zz0468]

Everything you ever wanted to know about maritime communications, and a few things you didn't. Some very good references to VHF radios, what the various channels are used for, etc. Includes an excerpt of FCC Part 80 saying scanning will not suffice for CH16 watch requirements.

Maritime Communications

 

[jaymatt1978]

On the USCG website it says Channel 16 156.800 is used for " Distress, Safety and calling". Which means the proper way is to ALWAYS monitor channel 16 call another boat on channel 16 and ask to move to a non-commercial marine channnel. All boats s hould monitor 16 when they aren't engaged in communications

 

[Dawn]

While this is an old thread, I thought I'd revive it for a comment regarding part 80 type acceptance on commercial radios. I believe the use of commerical radios was limited to shore stations operating on fixed frequencies designated by the license authorization provisions only. SOLAS and FCC requirements require a ship station to have switchable 1W, conform to a degree of gasketing for moisture and water, continue to operate below a certain voltage when the ships battery supply is low, RF sensed tx indicator and several other features that a typical commerical radio does not have, but does carry part 80 type acceptance. Ship's radios were also required to operate on all domestic channels like CB last I recall. The provision for fixed shore station still carries the 25W limit and generally only operates on a specific assigned frequency. We used to service a group of micor single channel compa stations that were standard land mobile bases that had 80 acceptance for a tow company. The main reason for that is if you were to take a typical vessel radio and hooked it up to a gain antenna on a tower in a rf dense enviornment typical of major ports near downtowns of cities, the intermod would drive a typical ships unit crazy. The higher spec radios operated on a single channel with a brick of helicals and perhaps even a couple of cavities between the antenna and radio to insure immunity from the metropolitan rf density. The station may have very well been on a tall building via telco tone remote with a phased pair of DB/AS/or PD VHF 4 poles in line pointed towards the water and still be legal. Now that I think of it, we also serviced some 3' rack stations with dc remotes made by Harris back then too with multiple daisy chained remotes/intercoms for a salvage operation. IIRC, there was also a stricter frequency tolerance imposed on the shore stations, not sure about that though. Several of the marine radio companies also made some very high spec radios for ships, although the covered the entire alloted frequencies. Large merchant vessel near port is just as succeptible with a high mounted bridge antenna. Many of these radios were also capable of full duplex with a duplexer for true full duplex operation with coastal marine operators. Harris used to make a version of their VHF Alpha IMTS phone specifically for marine, Furuno, Ross, Raytheon/JRC,Collins, and even Icom made one called the M500D. All were capable of full duplex operation. Some even carried co-type acceptance for part 90 in the case the radio had to operate on a business frequency too. Again, the Icom M500 series comes to mind as a full marine radio that was capable of part 90 operation. I haven't kept up with rules and regs post GMDSS, so I don't know what difference in carriage is now required besides DSC on ch. 70. The FCC was known to bend the rules a bit and grant special authority. The old Maritel used full blown remote Mastr II stations with the big PA.
for example. It was considered mission critical and they were often proxying for the Coast Guard's watch where you were more likely to raise the marine operator then get a response from a CG group.

 

[WB4CS]

While this is an old thread, I thought I'd revive it for a comment regarding part 80 type acceptance on commercial radios. I believe the use of commerical radios was limited to shore stations operating on fixed frequencies designated by the license authorization provisions only. SOLAS and FCC requirements require a ship station to have switchable 1W, conform to a degree of gasketing for moisture and water, continue to operate below a certain voltage when the ships battery supply is low, RF sensed tx indicator and several other features that a typical commerical radio does not have, but does carry part 80 type acceptance. Ship's radios were also required to operate on all domestic channels like CB last I recall. The provision for fixed shore station still carries the 25W limit and generally only operates on a specific assigned frequency. We used to service a group of micor single channel compa stations that were standard land mobile bases that had 80 acceptance for a tow company. The main reason for that is if you were to take a typical vessel radio and hooked it up to a gain antenna on a tower in a rf dense enviornment typical of major ports near downtowns of cities, the intermod would drive a typical ships unit crazy. The higher spec radios operated on a single channel with a brick of helicals and perhaps even a couple of cavities between the antenna and radio to insure immunity from the metropolitan rf density. The station may have very well been on a tall building via telco tone remote with a phased pair of DB/AS/or PD VHF 4 poles in line pointed towards the water and still be legal. Now that I think of it, we also serviced some 3' rack stations with dc remotes made by Harris back then too with multiple daisy chained remotes/intercoms for a salvage operation. IIRC, there was also a stricter frequency tolerance imposed on the shore stations, not sure about that though. Several of the marine radio companies also made some very high spec radios for ships, although the covered the entire alloted frequencies. Large merchant vessel near port is just as succeptible with a high mounted bridge antenna. Many of these radios were also capable of full duplex with a duplexer for true full duplex operation with coastal marine operators. Harris used to make a version of their VHF Alpha IMTS phone specifically for marine, Furuno, Ross, Raytheon/JRC,Collins, and even Icom made one called the M500D. All were capable of full duplex operation. Some even carried co-type acceptance for part 90 in the case the radio had to operate on a business frequency too. Again, the Icom M500 series comes to mind as a full marine radio that was capable of part 90 operation. I haven't kept up with rules and regs post GMDSS, so I don't know what difference in carriage is now required besides DSC on ch. 70. The FCC was known to bend the rules a bit and grant special authority. The old Maritel used full blown remote Mastr II stations with the big PA.
for example. It was considered mission critical and they were often proxying for the Coast Guard's watch where you were more likely to raise the marine operator then get a response from a CG group.

Holy wall of text!!! Paragraphs, please

When dealing with questions about rules, answering with "I believe" and "As I recall" does not help anyone as that doesn't provide any facts.

 

[lep]

Ahh yes, this does bring back old memories. It is interesting that there is a Quote not to modify Part 97 equipment for Part 80 use. I did it the other way around. I actually have an ICOM M500 originally used in Rome (Italy, not NY) during a demo at the Hq of the World food program of their data communication system that used a modified pactor protocol. The M500 was declared surplus after the demo (and replaced with an ICOM M5000) and I was able to acquire it. I now use it as an emergency radio for the NTIA authorized amateur use on the so-called 60 m 'band.' So, it went from a Marine radio ( not subject to FCC regulations) to a Fixed service radio, to an amateur radio. It is now got some age but was well built, rugged, and still performs up to spec. This specific unit was never used on a vessel but it's companion radios were sometimes used in trucks.

 

[Dawn]

Brandon, if you attention span is that short that you can't handle a long paragraph, then there must be comprehension problems. A paragraph as you should remember is a group of sentences that convey a complete thought and not limited to specific size. If you have a problem with my recall of the industry that I was in up to nearly 20 years ago, the rules in effect at the time, and subsequent changes, then I can refrain from posting any further, The FCC website is down, I don't have a copy of the CFR's of the time, so, my recollection is about the best that I can offer. Hence the words of contention.

Lep, you must be thinking about the identical looking HF transceiver M600 that was companion to the M500 and M500D. Great little radio, fully restorable to LSB and general coverage, but it's weak point was the vco trimmer caps. They should be replaced ASAP if the haven't been. Those too were type accepted in the states outside of the marine bands and could be used for most any other HF application. The state purchased several of them for the old Operation Secure state HF EOC network for some of the smaller EOC's after having too many problems with the SGC-2000's. Much more economical then the TWC-100 that were also in use and easier to use for untrained personel. We modified several as well as the M800 for the early MCI Mail using propritary clover ISA pc boards and for a variant of Pactor II called Pinoak Digital back then for marine in the aftermath of ATT pulling the plug on their HF marine operator. Very good little radio that made for a very neat, flush installation with the M500 as a pair.

Voice your opinion Brandon. I'll be happy to leave this board and not waste my or your time.

 

[nd5y]

The CFR web site is still up, just not being updated daily.
Here is part 80.
eCFR — Code of Federal Regulations