Marine VHF

[GreggInFL]

For those of you remotely interested in why a cell phone may not be enough when on the water:

https://www.bostonwhaler.com/navigator-blog/fishing/vhf-cell-phone.html?utm_content=&emid=$emid&mkt_tok=MTYyLUtVRi01MjkAAAGafbxL2QyGoJPbJBjrLcJ-lbHanNwDmjZT6SoK0grQSvstFrCTqPzXllh_ap9aNedhZReMJcOrEMsdI4P_voDV8RNoOJSC3lpPcxIkS3oKBJHUcA

[Socalgmrs]

That’s the same reasons why cell phones are not enough on land.  

[WRUE951]

3 hours ago, GreggInFL said:

For those of you remotely interested in why a cell phone may not be enough when on the water:

https://www.bostonwhaler.com/navigator-blog/fishing/vhf-cell-phone.html?utm_content=&emid=$emid&mkt_tok=MTYyLUtVRi01MjkAAAGafbxL2QyGoJPbJBjrLcJ-lbHanNwDmjZT6SoK0grQSvstFrCTqPzXllh_ap9aNedhZReMJcOrEMsdI4P_voDV8RNoOJSC3lpPcxIkS3oKBJHUcA

remember the days when we watched TV off Antennas..  One could easly pick up VHF signals 100's mile away and it didn't always requrie line of site..  The same broadcast and from the same site in UHF never faired as well.  UHF reception always required line of site and distance was drastically cut short.  Marnie Radio is VHF, where cell is UHF..   VHF signals tend to work bounce back and forth between the earth and the ionosphere where UHF signals don't under most conditions making VHF a lot more reliable in the water   

[GreggInFL]

24 minutes ago, WRUE951 said:

remember the days when we watched TV off Antennas..  One could easly pick up VHF signals 100's mile away and it didn't always requrie line of site..  The same broadcast and from the same site in UHF never faired as well.  UHF reception always required line of site and distance was drastically cut short.  Marnie Radio is VHF, where cell is UHF..   VHF signals tend to work bounce back and forth between the earth and the ionosphere where UHF signals don't under most conditions making VHF a lot more reliable in the water   

A fixed-mount marine radio with a big antenna mounted on the top (third?) deck at max power (25W IIRC) transmits many farz when the only obstacle is the earth's curvature.

Another good reference for those new to the subject: https://www.boatingworld.com/articles/boating/vhf-radio-your-ultimate-guide/

[WRUU653]

 I was aware that you are required to monitor 16 while out on the water and why. The info of recommended channels for “chatting” was new to me. My dad had a commercial fishing boat. Sadly I get pretty sea sick so I’ve kept my boating to the bay, lakes and streams. Still I liked the info.

[Lscott]

There is movement, international so far, to go digital voice on the VHF marine band. Then it will likely happen here sooner or later.

 

Implementation of digital voice radio telephony in the VHF maritime mobile band.pdf

[GreggInFL]

16 hours ago, WRUU653 said:

 I was aware that you are required to monitor 16 while out on the water and why. The info of recommended channels for “chatting” was new to me. My dad had a commercial fishing boat. Sadly I get pretty sea sick so I’ve kept my boating to the bay, lakes and streams. Still I liked the info.

Here is the USCG page for channel/freq assignments: https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/us-vhf-channel-information. Even though I'm just a recreational boater, it's still fun to monitor some of these channels, especially when overseas.

[WRCZ387]

19 hours ago, WRUE951 said:

Remember the days when we watched TV off Antennas? One could easily pick up VHF signals 100's of miles away and it didn't always require line of sight. The same broadcast and from the same site in UHF never fared as well. UHF reception always required line of sight and distance was drastically cut short. VHF signals tend to work bounce back and forth between the earth and the ionosphere where UHF signals don't under most conditions making VHF a lot more reliable

That explains why I could pick up VHF stations from Buffalo [2, 4, sometimes 7] & Syracuse [3, 5, never 9] when I lived in Rochester, NY, I couldn't get any UHF from Syracuse [24. 68] at all, & only once from Buffalo [29, never could get 17], & I think that was because of a band opening

I probably would have needed a very tall tower to improve my reception chances

There was a house just outside the city limits on the NW side that had vertically stacked TV antennas, I'm sorry that I never knocked on the door to ask what they were able to pick up

[marcspaz]

Something I always found interesting is most VHF stations were using about 3kw ERP.  Some UHF stations were 150kw ERP, but high-power stations were 500kw ERP.  Between the higher power and shorter wavelengths, UHF always had better image quality compared to VHF.

 

I remember dang near every house had a massive TV beam antenna on the roof and a rotator controller on top of the TV. We had a list of what direction to point the antenna to watch specific channels, and we would kind of fiddle with it to get it just right. But the best was if you had a set of TV top 'rabbit ears' and loop. I remember (before we got a beam) we weren't allowed to move around the living room while mom and dad were watching TV and we all had specific spots to sit when we watched TV, because our bodies would impact how well the TV signal were received. Or we would stand there touching the rabbit ears so grandpa could watch the news. LoL

[AdmiralCochrane]

WMPT is cranking a meg these days.  If I recall correctly, they had a temporary experimental licensed increase to 2 for a few months.

 

My father bought a beam/yagi so far back I don't remember not having it. Probably on advice from my godfather who was a navy radio tech in the very early 1960's.

[WRKC935]

On 5/17/2025 at 6:32 PM, WRUE951 said:

remember the days when we watched TV off Antennas..  One could easly pick up VHF signals 100's mile away and it didn't always requrie line of site..  The same broadcast and from the same site in UHF never faired as well.  UHF reception always required line of site and distance was drastically cut short.  Marnie Radio is VHF, where cell is UHF..   VHF signals tend to work bounce back and forth between the earth and the ionosphere where UHF signals don't under most conditions making VHF a lot more reliable in the water   

Not sure that's right. 

Part of analog VHF TV was below 100Mhz, but went as high as 210 Mhz.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_channel_frequencies

But, satellite communications are done, at least with ham radio, at 145Mhz.  Now, there isn't much satellite happening below that, and the reason is the reflection.  But low powered handheld radios with modest gain antenna's are used with great success at 145Mhz.  So there isn't much 'skip' happening on the upper portions of VHF. 

TV signals are NOT a good measure of coverage distance, reason being is thousand foot towers and 100KW plus ERP's.  You can't sit and have a discussion of GMRS or ANY type of non-broadcast radio and compare it to TV or even AM /FM radio.  The antenna heights and power levels are so much greater with commercial radio and TV stations that it's not even apples and oranges.  Its apples and steak, or beer, NOTHING is similar when it comes to coverage. 

And broadcast anything is just that, broadcast.  It's all one way.  Now if you operate simplex (without a repeater) it's at least one way at a time RF, unlike a repeater that's listening to something and transmitting it somewhere else.