How to use a Marine VHF RADIO [Capable Cruising Guides]

Hi, I'm Emily, about sailboat temperatures and today we're going to talk about using a VHF

marine

radio

on board your boat when you're out on a boat, whether it's for a day trip or as a lifestyle you can't always. Count on Internet or telephone to be available if you need to contact someone in an emergency or simply for a social situation. That's what the VHF

radio

is for. Everyone on board your boat should know how to use a VHF radio confidently and correctly, so it is important whether it is your partner or your crew or a guest you have a board or even your children it is good that everyone knows how to use this equipment here myself and it's not very complicated I'm going to walk you through it my husband Clark and I've been boating together for over five years and the VHF radio is something I've normally been in charge of especially when we're underway or boating or there's a night crossing or whatever.

Normally I'm the one who jumps in here and puts it on. As for the radio, the good thing now is that we just installed another radio headset in the cabin, so now we can both use the radio at the same time. I have also been the VHF uh net controller pretty consistently at Georgetown in the Bahamas. when we stay there for a long time, three and four seasons, so I get a lot of time in front of the microphone. I guess you'd say I'm not perfect, but I've learned a few things over the years and I'm going to share them with you today.

So what is VHF radio? VHF radio is a way to communicate. Good for about 25 miles. There is something called a single sideband radio that we also have that is good for much longer distances, but this is going to be your short term or short distance communication when you are on the boat it is good for emergencies it is good for getting weather information and kind of general updates about the surroundings good for chatting with friends good if you are sailing or going somewhere and you see another ship approaching and you want to establish communication and find out if we are going to cross paths, what is going on, so it has a lot of good uses and it's also kind of a social platform, you could call it. social networking, uh, for cruises here, sometimes we do networking, which is kind of like a morning conference call.

I guess you would call her between ships to check on people. Do people need you to know? Does anyone need a tool they don't have? or someone's having trouble with their boat or a bunch of that kind of stuff or just, do people want to get together and eat together this weekend? All of those things are ways we use VHF radio, so who needs a VHF radio? Well, basically, if you're on a boat and you're farther from shore, then you'd need to be for someone to hear you scream or honk. You probably need to have a radio now if you are on a small boat like I am sometimes a portable radio.

It's probably fine for you, you don't have to go far if you're doing more than just day sailing, if you have a boat of any size and size it will probably come with a VHF radio installed and there's a good reason why you should have one is Emergency equipment is just as important as having an anchor or life jackets. It's a way to communicate when you're in trouble and get the word out, so if you're going out to do a day sale, take a hand if you have a small boat. , have a decent radio that you can communicate with if you are going out for a long time and, like us, maybe spending a month on the ragged islands or something where there aren't many other people who would like to have something more substantial and long range with a bigger antenna, that kind of thing, but again, the coaster sailor, the cruiser, the traveler, all of these people are going to need VHF radio and all of these people should know how to use VHF. radio, okay, so let's take a look at the basic parts and functions of the vhf 101 radio.

If you want, here on our radio there is a power button right here, we also turn it on on the panel here that we have above and buttons down to control the channel we will get into the channels a little later there is a volume here obviously controls the volume this is something called a squelch a VHF radio will sound like this all the time the squelch is a function within the radio that tells the speaker that ignores that noise when nothing else is happening, but when someone else is talking and comes out, it projects that, so we always want to turn the squelch down as much as we can until it starts making that noise and then open it again, it's almost like be in the shower, you turn the hot water on all the way and then dial it back until it's at the right spot, so it looks like this, just one click away, usually now, sometimes, if you're making a long distance connection and someone you hear like any other word they say, sometimes I turn the mute down and hear that static, but I'll also be able to hear the words they say through the static, which can be difficult, but you get used to it after a while. time, so anyway that's the mute button.

We have a red button here that says 16, the reason it says 16 is because 16 is the general. call and emergency channel, so it's a quick way to jump directly to channel 16. Pressing it again will take you back to the channel you were on before. Let's look at the hl button which is for high power and low power if your radio is on low power you will be able to communicate over a short distance, if it is on high power you will be able to communicate over a longer distance so if you are trying to communicate with someone and can't hear you You can turn on high power if you are in a small bay like we are here in Luperón and everyone is close together.

Low power is fine and people can usually hear us if we are at a greater distance, obviously we want to go out. We don't want to have it on high power all the time when we are here in the bay and we don't need to communicate with someone who is far away because everyone can hear what we say and they don't need to hear what we are saying, most people's VHF is an essential spot on your ship so it's like yelling in everyone's living room and you don't want to yell in everyone's little living room around you just the people that you need to reach essentially uh here we have a button distress, it's a problem, it has a little cover on ours, press the distress button and it will transmit your GPS location, uh, if you're in danger, so that's what up here is a A very useful little light on our radio when something plays on the radio that lights up to show that there's a sound coming out, which can actually be very useful because sometimes if you're on the phone or something, you turn the volume down or someone's having a really unpleasant conversation at night. three in the morning, they just get up and turn the volume down and sometimes you forget it's turned down, so you look and oh, why is it blinking, someone's talking and my volume's down, it all happens.

At that point you will hear someone call another ship and then that ship will call them back and they won't answer because they turned off the radio and forgot to turn it back on anyway. Those are the general parts of the radio, let's talk a little about the microphone, our microphone is a little advanced. I guess you'd say this is the push-to-talk button that most radials will have. Here we have a high and low control button. The same controls the height. power low power we have that jump button to channel 16 and back and then we have our up and down buttons that are also useful there are high gain microphones and low gain microphones let's talk about the differences that our previous radio had a low gain microphone this radio has a high gain microphone and they work very differently a high gain microphone will pick up all the sound around it and it will be nice and loud a low gain microphone will only pick up sounds that are very close to the microphone why would you want one against another?

Well, when we're running and this engine is roaring and maybe there's a storm, if we have to contact someone and I press this button, they're going to get a lot of noise. They're going to hear whatever music there is. They're going to hear any background noise. They're going to hear. the conversation that's happening there on the boat they're going to hear everything now that means it's easy to talk you know comfortably from here but sometimes you don't want that sometimes it's better to have a low gain microphone our old one is low grain and you had You have to hold it very close to your mouth to be able to hear this You can use it directly here, how do you use the microphone?

So again, you need to know if you have a high gain microphone or a low gain microphone, because if you talk like that into a high gain microphone, you will be yelling at everyone and if you talk like that into a low gain microphone, no one will be able to hear you when you use a microphone. um you should over enunciate your words to an almost unpleasant degree because what comes out on the other end of someone's radio and depending on what type. kind of radio or quality equipment that they have, it's going to be a difficult phone call to hear, so being as clear as possible helps to hold the microphone, especially if you have a low microphone and hold it right here if you can avoid those explosives, those peas and those t's and those es.

There are some people who do that and it's like listening to them talk is really difficult. You can turn the microphone to the side, so I think you'll see that we did some videos of mine. When doing the cruise network, you can see them here and I think I was using a low gain microphone at the time so I held it like this and that's how I usually use a low gain microphone. I hold this one here a little. bit uh here so anyway micro high gain and low gain microphone know which one you have and know how to use it if you don't know if you have a high gain or low gain microphone you can call a friend on another boat and do a test radio do it on a channel that works again we'll get into the channels later um you could just say you know here's the number of test a here's test b here's test c which one sounds best and you can determine where that one is distance for you other The thing about the microphone is this push to talk button, there are different sensitivities and sometimes that button is a little laborious to press and hold if you're having trouble because people understand every other word because you lift it up accidentally. that button or not pressing it hard enough one of the tests that you can do let me go to another channel here quickly is that you can turn on your mute and you can press to talk and if your butt and if your button slides up, You're going to hear that unpleasant static noise so you know your finger will have moved from the button, so it's a good way to practice.

Yes, that's it, so make sure the button is fully pressed. I guess the last thing about the microphone is when we are talking, press the button, wait half a second and then say your message, wait half a second and then lift the button. There are a lot of people who just say hello and you listen and you don't hear the first part of their word or they cut themselves off, so press, talk, let them know, finish talking and then let it go, so I think that's all I'm going to do. say about the microphone, okay, so we have talked about the basics of the radio itself, let's talk about the channels, um, there are some very important channels that you should know when it comes to vhf radio channel 16 in all parts of the world in Everywhere it is the channel for calls and emergencies in general, if you go to a big place like Miami you are going to hear a lot of traffic on channel 16.

It is when you are sailing, another boat is sailing and you want to locate it, the basic thing is to always be on the channel 16 to be able to contact that ship which is where everyone is now because that's where everyone is very loud and very busy, so in a port like this in Luperón there is usually a locally accepted calling channel here on 68. It's also 68 in Georgetown when we spend time there, that's what people in a small area use to call others. boats and getting their attention is where people hang out. I guess you could say that if you were to call someone 911 on the 16th, you know the call channel or one of these smaller types of call channels, the polite thing to do is to get off that channel and go to what's called a channel. work, so sometimes it's just hey up one or go to six nine or go to seven two whatever the number is, you establish what the channel is, then you both go there and continue your conversation even if you're in one place and not there is no one else on that calling channel, that doesn't mean there isn't other traffic going around we have a very high power antenna we have a very high power radio and if we are talking to someone in this bay people are likely to hear us from far away, so we might inadvertently interrupt conversations, so it's good to do what you need to do and then move to a work channel that you know is less busy.

So I guess you can think of an emergency call channel. You already know the secondary call channels and then you have channels that work. Ok, now that we know the basics, let's talk about making a radio call. Haveyour call channel. Okay, you have another boat. out there that you want to contact sometimes you might not know the name of the boat that might say hello, catamaran heading east from guacamole island, whatever it is and they might respond to you, eh, but sometimes you know her name, so let's say we call a book called princess, we have temperatures, we'll call a ship.

Her name is princess, uh, you're going to make sure you're on the right calling channel, which I'm not because I don't want to accidentally transmit, you're going to press the button and say that. the other ship's name three times and then your own vote name three times, then I would say princess princess princess temperatures temptress temptress and that would be the sign that says here's who I want to talk to and here's who I am uh so I'm going to wait Yeah They don't respond right away, don't keep pushing, give them a second, you know, maybe they're having dinner or whatever they need to do when they hear you, if they hear you, they'll respond and say.

Say hello temptress, temptress, I'm a princess and you say hello princess, how are you doing? Let's move on to work channels such and such and they would switch to the other channel so you can continue your conversation there. The good thing is to know that the VHF radio uses half as much. Duplex system is not a full duplex system, what does that mean? Well, it's not like a cell phone, you can't just pick it up and talk to someone and they can talk over you and interrupt you while you talk, press, talk, talk. and talk and talk until you're done talking and then you lift the button and it's their turn to talk, so you can't start a conversation if someone's hand is on the button, so your messages should be short and you should indicate to the other person when you're done talking and we do it by saying to you, so hey, how are you doing?

We're here today wondering if you guys want to go out to lunch or you know. they're playing hey, that sounds good, what time were you thinking and do you know? Then it's your turn to speak. The Hollywood stereotype that we think of is over and it's over and it's over means for you and I'm done talking to you. because the word out means I'm done with the conversation so never say over and over again use one or the other on top it means we're still talking it means goodbye essentially another slang you might need is the word break up if someone else is having a conversation or two People are confused or maybe not listening to each other.

You can interrupt the conversation by just saying the word break or break break and then when they hear that, they'll stop and say oh break, go ahead. comes into our conversation, the other thing that might be useful is relay, so if you hear another boat being called and the other boaters answer, but the other boat can't seem to hear the boat that's calling them, you can call one of those others. ships and they say hello princess, uh, mr. rogers is calling you, but you don't seem to hear them. I would be happy to relay to you what they will say, okay, great, and I would say okay, mr. rogers, the princess is listening, what are you doing?

I want to tell them otherwise and then they would give me the message and I would pass it on sometimes, depending on the height of your antenna and all kinds of things about your radio, you might be in a position to hear two people who can't. listen to each other so we all help each other, so, um, so, relay and break those are some important terms for you and the other, something else that would be good for you to know and it's not embarrassing to put a little cheat sheet next to you the radio is the phonetic alphabet, being able to spell things again, it can be quite confusing when broadcast, so knowing the phonetic alphabet alpha bravo charlie delta echo foxtrot golf hotel, etcetera, etcetera, allows us to have a common language and know what you're saying.

When you're spelling things, this happens a lot when you're going over bridges, uh, the drawbridges on the icw, or you often call the bridge operator and ask for the next opening so you can get your boat through and they'll ask you what your name is and you're going to have to spell their name temptress is one they say what is what do you know you're saying temperatures you're saying tempest they don't know so we usually have to spell it for them uh and again you can write it down near your radio if you want that's how we say phonetic spelling of our boat name, let's take a look at what a conversation on the VHF radio might sound like, let's cut to a clip of me talking to my good friend conrad talahala, these are the tempting temperatures, uh, let's go up to seven four please, more than seven four, okay, then we will change the channel to get out of that call channel and then we will establish communication here, talahala, this is tempting. it's good to make sure they're there before you start talking talahala, this is the moment of temptation, just hey conrad, how are you today?

Alright, you and Emily. I'm very well. I'm recording a YouTube video here and I want to explain some of the terms we're using, so I'm going to tell you a knock knock joke over sounds great over knock knock over who's there washing the dishes this is who this is a nice conversation that we are having through our VHF radio don't you think about it? Oh yeah, I'm sure that's all I have for you. Whatever else is going on. Well, you know, I'm just doing both projects. But it's just a normal day. and I'll go back to six eight temperatures go back to six eight outside okay, let's talk about maybe the most important part, which is emergencies, how emergencies are handled.

There are three key words that everyone on board your boat should know when it comes to emergencies. There are three different levels of emergency urgency. You can think of them. I think of them as sort of red, orange and yellow emergencies. The red, the highest, the most serious emergency. We all know him from Hollywood. It's Mayday Mayday May Day. This is your temptress. I know we accidentally jibed and my captain fell overboard and I don't know what the hell I'm doing. Someone please come help me. Whatever it may be, Mayday is for when your ship is sinking, when someone is seriously hurt or injured. medical need and you need someone to come and help you everyone stop what you're doing and pay attention to what I'm saying it's very important mayday mayday mayday that's what mayday is for the second level it's called pan pan this is what I think in that the orange level of the emergency tray is for something that could be serious or something imminent or something to take into account.

You could think of it like having a tornado warning or a tornado watch tray would be the tornado watch, I guess hurricane watch, if we're talking about ships, I guess that's more appropriate, um, so pan pan, uh , if you're on a collision course with another ship, that could be a good example of the bread used, so we have the emergency day. I have pan pan the last one is something like yellow or maybe even something like the yellow-green color of emergency would be security security is something that is used a lot if you are passing through Miami or another big city, you will often hear the coast. guard, you know, so here it is, it's a safe day, safe day, this is a coax car station, something, something, something, here, it's the weather right now and we got a call about something, you gotta keep an eye out to some vote you are doing. something is a general announcement a general broadcast something that doesn't require everyone to stop what they're doing now and listen, no one is going to die if you ignore these announcements.

These are for things like if those types of notices, I guess you could say or other types of news, so again, let the bread pan safety day know what they are and again you can stick them right on your radio. In fact, if you're on our Patreon page, we'll post a pdf that you can just print. turn it off and place it near your VHF radio which will have a small script on how to handle emergencies what emergency word to use your phonetic alphabet insert how you write your name here it is a good key if you just got a boat and if you are in a special situation especially sometimes, you know these things, you know the phonetic alphabet by heart and then you get into a stressful situation, you can't think about what it is, what it is, what do you use for me, I forgot, I forgot what it is and you know?

You've got it there and it's also good for kids talking about kids and crew members. If you have children on board your boat or guests on board your boat, but mostly children, teach them how to use and respect the VHF radio, if you don't, it's like you know the kids have fun and dial 9- 1-1 because they hear there's something called 9-1-1 and they don't really know how it works if you teach them how to do it. to use it and respect it, they will respect it, we hear this a lot of times in Georgetown, a little kid comes on the radio and starts singing or says, is there anyone out there?

You know they want to hear someone respond, they see their parents or the adults on board use this to talk, they know what it is so they want to experiment with it. The smartest parents are the ones who teach them how to use that radio and listen to these kids call. You know, hey bo bo, this is me. They know it and they'll call and they'll go to a work channel and they'll say, do you want to come over and have a sleepover tonight and they'll say okay, which is really nice, but it's important because to those kids, if something happens to them?

Your parents will be able to listen to that radio, know how it works, and call for help if an adult can't, so make sure your kids know how to use the VHF radio. You can practice and choose a channel that works that is not a calling channel and you can practice back and forth with a handheld and your VHF radio, if you can do it, I think that's it for the basics of VHF operation on a ship. You know how to use your radio. Get a radio first of all. a radio is an emergency equipment test your radio make sure it works uh if you have any particular questions about how to install it or troubleshoot your radio feel free to leave some comments below or contact us on patreon we will be happy to answer you and go ahead and help people figure these things out get yourself a radio get yourself a working radio know how to use your radio know how to call in an emergency know what channels to use and teach everyone on your boat, even if they're on duty an excursion of a day, teach them how to use the radio because they might need it in an emergency and you can't count on a cell phone call to 9-1-1 if you need it because sometimes you're too far away to reach someone like that It's really important to know If you're going to come out and vote, as important as knowing how to anchor, as important as knowing how to start the engine, it's just a basic part of boat operation, so again, feel free to leave comments.

If you have questions, if you have other tips for other people about what you've learned about VHF radio and tips that you would like to share, and thank you to all of our sponsors for making this video possible, all of our ongoing videos. possible, thanks to those who watched our live broadcast last month because that's where the idea for the video came from, someone was actually asking about VHF radio networks. They can see the VHF radio networks. uh, I did it up here, I filmed myself here. Mirror image, so I don't know which way it is, but I've done VHF radio networking before.

There are a couple different videos where I make a radio net, so we'll link to them in the description here on lupron. I don't do it as much because it's not so much a floating community as it is in a place like Georgetown, but we could do another video on how to start a radio network or how I plan a radio network. Yes, there you have it. Those are the basics, learn how to use your radio and we'll talk to you next time