Standard Horizon vs Icom VHF

[Mike...]

Hello to all.

Any thoughts on the Standard Horizon GX2000 vs the ICOM M604?

I am putting in a Garmin chartplotter, so I was thinking about going with their VHF, bit it is pricey, and I am really not fond of the "everything on the mic" approach. But, it does have a very interesting 90sec playback of the last received transmission.
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mike

[thataway]

Both Standard Horizon and Icom are excellent radios. But for the extra $135 dollars (or 50 gallons of fuel=5 hours of boating)--I would get the Standard Horizon AIS 2100, unless you are planing to put in an AIS transceiver. For the $130 you get a first class AIS receiver. You can always use the second mike if you want (will full controls, which makes sense if you have a second station).

Garmin makes great great GPS units, but Standard Horizon and Icom have very long track records in commercial grade VHF transceivers.

[Chester]

Some ICOM handsets are notorious for having the port for the microphone pickup located so the thumb covers it when holding the handset with the right hand. Many ICOM owners wonder why no one can receive their transmissions and think something is wrong with the radio. Under stress one could forget to hold the mike in an unnatural way so's the transmission can be heard by others. There is even a thread about this issue on the forum. I looked at images of the M604 handset and it did not look like my ICOM M422 with that design fault. You might want to verify the M604's design though.

[hardee]

What Dr Bob said. I would go with the the SH GX 2100. Good radio, fog/hailer capability, and has the AIS as well. Not sure where the 90 second playback came from. I thought that was only on the Cobra's.

Harvey
SleepyC

[Mike...]

[Mike...]

[hardee]

[toyman]

I have problems with the "Chenglish" in the Icom manuals. I have Icom VHF in the boat, and Icom 2 mtr hand and vehicle mounts, good radios but have trouble translating all of the manuals - this after living/working in China 6 yrs.

[Tortuga]

I put in a SH GX 2100 w/ AIS a couple of months ago and I really like it. The AIS is really easy, and the onboard screen is actually easier to use at-a-glance than trying to locate vessels on the chartplotter. The only drawback is the channel knob -- it is just above the volume/power knob, and as the radio is mounted overhead I am constantly turning the wrong knob. The channel knob has very little resistence, and though it ratchets between channels -- it is a bit too smooth for my taste. I spent half the day on SF Bay monitoring ch 17. Obviously, the lesson is just to take a look at the channel .

[Mike...]

Dave, I hear you. I hate that.

Tortuga, it's a nit picky issue, but I really prefer volume controls with detents. Too bad the Standard radios don't have that.

I don't plan to get the AIS version of the radio because I plan to install an AIS transponder. Now if they had a radio that also was an AIS transponder, I would jump on that.
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mike

[Mike...]

[Larry H]

Mike,

I have a GX2100 and the handset only has channel up-down and a 16/9 button.

Are you talking about the optional RAM mic?

The AIS display is on the radio itself, and the radio still shows the channel and received calls while the AIS screen is on.

This link shows the radio and handset/mic.

http://www.standardhorizon.com/indexVS.cfm?cmd=DisplayProducts&ProdCatID=83&encProdID=F858763BB81027701141A0167DE2A031&DivisionID=3&isArchived=0

[Mike...]

[hardee]

Larry H or Tortuga, or anyone using the SH GX 2l00. Are you using that with Raymarine equipment on board? Somewhere on here there was a discussion mentioning the difficulty that the SH had in communicating with the Raymarine equipment, GPS I think was the culprit, and the NMEA packet or speeds or something.

Sow how is it working if you are using Raymarine C-series? And what if you did not want to have it output to the chart plotter?

Thanks for any discussion on those lines.

Harvey
SleepyC

[Larry H]

I have the GX2100 but I don't have any Raymarine gear onboard.

It was Tim at Navagear that had a problem as his chartplotter only had one input.

The AIS standard requires a 38,400 baud transfer rate so the GX2100 has two outputs, one at 38,400 and one at 4800.