Hit the WX button and you get immediate current weather for your region. And most have a weather station monitoring feature, which allows emergency weather broadcasts to break through even when you're not tuned to the weather channel.
You no longer need an FCC ship station license to use a VHF on a recreational boat. But there are a few basic rules imposed by the FCC and the Coast Guard on VHF radios which you do not have to deal with in cell phones. For instance, safety and distress calls take priority; if you are chatting about where to find bait and somebody cuts in to call for help, you must end your call and give them the airtime. If your radio is on and you are not operating on another channel, you are supposed to monitor channel 16 at all times. Indecent or profane language is prohibited. (Yeah it is—ever been in Boca Grande Pass in the middle of the summer tarpon wars?)
Among the companies offering handhelds are West Marine, whose VHF-50 we photographed for this article; www.westmarine.com. It’s priced at just $99. Icom offers models priced as low as $150; www.icomamerica.com; Standard Horizon makes perhaps the smallest handheld, just 3.5 inches tall—the HX460S goes for $249; www.standardhorizon.com. And Cobra sells a pair of VHF’s for about $125, maybe the cheapest package on the market, www.cobraelectronics.com/.
