VHF radios are required by the Coast Guard on basically any boat bigger than a surfboard in U.S. coastal waters. That’s an exaggeration of course. Regulations do change at various lengths, but I’m not sure where the VHF requirement kicks in. The reason I don’t know is that I like to have a radio whether I’m sailing or paddling. It’s not just an issue of regulations. When paddling in ports with any significant traffic, it’s nice to be able to raise the attention of other skippers for whatever reason. Sport-fishermen skipping across waves at 30kts while I’m between troughs taller than my profile has always seemed like a recipe for disaster.

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeMhFXzutKs

I actually don’t think it’s required for my 16′ TRAK kayak, but if I’m out in water that tastes even a little salty, you’ll see a Standard Horizon HX850s clipped to my deck lines. The more I think about it, the more I realize that I kind of take this thing everywhere. It’s on-board my sailboat if its not in use elsewhere. Also, I take it with me if I’m joining the crew of anyone else’s boat. Radios have a tendency to freak out. The HX850S makes a great backup for an equipped vessel, and works great as a primary on smaller boats.

As a radio, this Standard Horizon unit functions nicely. The 6W transmit power is a nice boost for a handheld. If that doesn’t mean anything to you… Like the amps in Spinal Tap, “it’s one louder”. Okay, not louder per se, but it’s more powerful than most on the transmission. More power = longer range.

One caveat that I noticed in the manual is that it’s only capable of hitting 6-Watts when the Li-Iion battery pack is installed. That’s probably never going to be an issue since it comes with the required battery, but it’s also kind of cool to note that an accessory to allow the use of standard AA batteries is available.

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The build quality is not as bullet-proof as it looked to me in the stock photos. The main reason for that is the rubberized coating. It appeared to me that the entire thing was rubberized. It’s not a huge deal, but the strip of rubber only lines the edges of the face. It’s also thicker than I expected it to be. All of the above said, it’s still built better than other handheld VHF’s I’ve used.

The bolded features below are a magical combination that didn’t exist (still probably don’t) on any other radio. The other features make the decision a no-brainer:

• Floating
• Submersible (IPX7)
• 6-Watt Transmit Power
• GPS
• High Intensity Strobe Light
• AC & DC Chargers Included
• 1150 mAh Lithium-Ion Battery
• DSC Distress and POS Polling

[flickr size="small" float="left"]http://www.flickr.com/photos/37478010@N05/3942211002/[/flickr]

The night landing in a bit of surf that lead to the picture here was a hectic moment. I was wearing my standard big stupid grin after getting a little wet on a warm summer night until I realized the radio made a jump for it somewhere in the last seconds. Fortunately, I’d actually remembered to stash a light in my PFD for once and was able to swim around in the surf a bit and find it. I don’t understand buying a handheld VHF that’s not submersible. The floating feature seems like a requirement for something used on water too. Maybe it’s a manufacturing cost thing, but I wouldn’t buy a radio like this without those two features.

I mentioned this in the video above, but there’s one reason in particular that I opted for the model with GPS. That is its ability to plug into an NMEA chartplotter. I thought there would be some sort of standardized connector, but the base essentially gets hardwired directly into your system through the base-unit. This probably isn’t going to be something you’ll use, but I’m not a fan of sextants so I like to keep as many GPS backups around as possible. However, the GPS is also the source of my one small complaint with the HX850S. The GPS speed (SOG) is only available in whole numbers. While that’s fine if you’re motoring along, it’s not nearly enough variation in a kayak. The GPS sensor seems to be fairly accurate so this appears to be a design decision rather than a technical limitation. It was a bad design decision as far as my use is concerned.