MacGregorSailors.com

I am currently in the market for a Mac, and I am assembling some required items in preparation. I have done some reading about the need for a base VHF and a handheld. I like the idea of having two radio's aboard for safety and versatility. Numerous others have stated that they like this setup as well. I have been reading about the Standard Horizon HX 851, as it has many good features.
http://www.westmarine.com/webapp/wcs/st ... 7AodTUcGsQ
On the negative side, it has a limited battery, and no MOB button.
My intended usage would be inland lakes at first, then close costal and ICW in the future.

What do you fellas use, and why?
Is their something better on the market, or coming soon?
As always, thank you for your time and opinions
Hope everyone had a safe and happy Thanksgiving

Rich

I have a standard horizon Eclipse and a west marine handheld that I got on sale for $80. I am happy with my setting. I don't think that the MOB is a big deal since most likely you would have it with a GPS. The battery life is not bad for handhelds, I think. The DSC signal can be added to the Eclipse by connecting it to the GPS (part of my to do list for this winter). Personally, I think that that handheld is an overkill for our boats since you would still have a GPS with most of those features.

Good luck with your search for a boat,

Sea Wind

Hx851 is in our ditch bag for coastal cruising

We use the small Standard Horizon combined VHF and FRS radios for both sea and land use. Remember you cant use you VHF on land. I'm having trouble with my 9 year old SH unit and may replace with an AIS unit next season.

I use this one http://www.westmarine.com/webapp/wcs/st ... sNum=50160. The battery life is amazing, mine is very lightly used but it will hold a charge for probably 6 months. The price is right and it does everything I need.

Mark

Loud Speaker System would work better than any VHF Radio when the 50Ft. Cruiser passes ya with a 6 ft. wake in a 150 ft. width channel at 20 knots.
In the Miserable Mile from Picnic Island to the Intercoastal Calossa waterways is who is the Bigger boat, not who has the right of way or respect on the Waterways for their wake.
Bigger they are, less respect thay have for small boats. Have you heard this before?
Bigger they are, harder they fall!
I guess I gust have a thing against Stink Pots and that they think they can control the waterways with their Hugh Wakes.
Well I am tired of their arrigance and their filthy 4-6 ft. wakes and give us other peeons a little less waves and a lot more respect. Hurr, Huurha. Arg
Dave

06HARLEYULTRA wrote:I am currently in the market for a Mac, and I am assembling some required items in preparation. I have done some reading about the need for a base VHF and a handheld. I like the idea of having two radio's aboard for safety and versatility. Numerous others have stated that they like this setup as well. I have been reading about the Standard Horizon HX 851, as it has many good features.
http://www.westmarine.com/webapp/wcs/st ... 7AodTUcGsQ
On the negative side, it has a limited battery, and no MOB button.
My intended usage would be inland lakes at first, then close costal and ICW in the future.

What do you fellas use, and why?
Is their something better on the market, or coming soon?
As always, thank you for your time and opinions
Hope everyone had a safe and happy Thanksgiving

Rich

We also have a Standard Horizon Eclipse+ for our main radio with DSC that is connected to a GPS and we have our MMSI number. Hopefully we never have to use it.

For a handheld we bought a standard horizon HX500s that I think has been replaced with the HX370S, although some still have the HX500.

We have been really happy with both radios and will be buying another Eclipse for the Endeavour and will get a MMSI number assigned to it also. The GX1150 Eclipse DSC+ has replaced the earlier 2 Eclipse models...

http://www.defender.com/product.jsp?pat ... id=1617126

$130 once you put it in your cart.

Good luck,

Sum

Our Endeavour 37

Our Trips to Utah, Idaho, Canada, Florida

Our MacGregor S Pages

Mac-Venture Links

The ones that float have a shorter batttery life. The ones that sink have a longer battery life. Life's always a compromise.

So buy one that sinks, and attach a floating fob (bright colour) large enough to give it positive buoyancy.

(Or you can attach an anode rod to it, and make it zinc.)

Rich....are you thinking Lake Murray sailing or headed to the coast?

For lakes, just stick with that handheld..I would get the one with the GPS, but that's just me. You won't need a base station until you are heading offshore 5-10 miles or more.

I bought a Uniden Atlantis 250 from West Marine. The reason I chose this radio was that it came with two battery packs. One was the regular pack and the other one was an empty shell that I can fill with batteries. This was an important feature because I always have spare batteries with me and in case of a battery pack failure I can always use regular batteries. I don't use the radio much and the regular battery lasted a year on a single charge.

06HARLEYULTRA wrote:... I have been reading about the Standard Horizon HX 851, as it has many good features.....
On the negative side, it has a limited battery, and no MOB button.
My intended usage would be inland lakes at first, then close costal and ICW in the future. Rich

It looks like you would spend the $270 on the HX 851.

For a little more you could get the GX1150 Eclipse with the DSC for $130.00 and the handheld HX 280S for $106.00. We bought a Garmin Map 76, non-color, off of E-bay for less than $80 that had never been used. There are others on there right now.

Hook the Garmin to the GX1150 and you would enable the DSC function of the radio and the Garmin would give you tides, position, the MOB and the option with a computer of running free SeaClear to map routes and export the waypoints into the Garmin from the computer. We went over 400 miles in Florida doing just that.

Now you have a fixed radio that will pick up NOAA weather for long distances and also get out there and transmit and receive long distance (of course you need an antenna and coax, but this doesn't have to be at the top of the mast). You have your handheld and you have a GPS, all for about $316 plus the antenna and coax. Not to much more than what you would spend on the HX 851.

You would have yourself well covered now and in the future for just a tad more,

Sum

Our Endeavour 37

Our Trips to Utah, Idaho, Canada, Florida

Our MacGregor S Pages

Mac-Venture Links

Thanks for the responses.
I think I am going to head in the HX280s direction.
Hope all had a safe holiday...

Rich

Sumner wrote:
Hook the Garmin to the GX1150 and you would enable the DSC function of the radio and the Garmin would give you tides, position, the MOB and the option with a computer of running free SeaClear to map routes and export the waypoints into the Garmin from the computer. We went over 400 miles in Florida doing just that.



Sum

This is just the topic I've been searching for. Sum, how do you hook the Garmin to the Eclipse?

Hi, I don't have the units mentioned, but I would assume that they hook up like most GPS do.

you will have 3 wires, a send , receive, and ground. they would hook from the back of the GPS to the Radio. There is likely a wire "harness" that plugs in to the units, and give bare wire on the other end, if you wish to spend $$$, you can often by an EXACT harness to go between the 2 units.

The only set up would then be to set up the units to "talk" in the same language. This would be in 2 parts, firstly the "speed" they talk at , called baud, or baud rate. and second "what" they same, this would be nmea "something"(RCM I think is popular).

if you have any soldering skills at all , the 9 pin corrector is a fairly standard one to use, I think the standard is to use pins 1,3,5 for the connectivity, this would have that advantage that it could be plugged in to a laptop. Often the GPS can be powered through the same wire set.

Kev.

We just have the west marine submersible/floating hand held. Hopefully, we'll be able to afford to add a base unit during next winter's mod marathon!

...Doug
http://starsloop.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/StarSloop?feature=mhee

kevinnem wrote:....you will have 3 wires, a send , receive, and ground. they would hook from the back of the GPS to the Radio. There is likely a wire "harness" that plugs in to the units, and give bare wire on the other end,

The 3 wires can be the case. The Eclipse has the potential for the use of 3. Our Cuda 350 that is the transmitting device to the Eclipse VHF only sends and can't receive, so only 2 wires were used, the send and ground on it and the receive and ground on the VHF, so it only took 2 wires in this case. On the Endeavour we will send from the older Garmin Map 76 to the VHF and will also just use 2 of the 3 wires for the connection.

On the Mac with the Cuda/Eclipse combo I had to add a lenght of wire, very small wire, between both devices and it was soldered to the existing wires on the Cuda and Eclipse. With the Garmin 76 to the computer via a serial cable and the power cord were all bought off the shelf for that connection. I did insert a power cord extension and a serial cable extension to get further out into the cockpit with the handheld and still have it connected to the computer/chart plotter for course/waypoint changes at any time.

We have the handheld connected to the computer/chartplotter and are using the send, receive and ground in that application and also the handheld is charged through a 12 v. cigarette type plug. We don't use batteries in it.

The manual will show you the wires and the colors in most cases,

Sum

Our Endeavour 37

Our Trips to Utah, Idaho, Canada, Florida

Our MacGregor S Pages

Mac-Venture Links