>The icom m-15 is said by icom to be their best handheld..and is very >durable as far as I can tell...and submersion resistant. >Problem: No alkaline battery pack is available. The Icom M1-V, I think, is their top-of-the-line. Submersible to JIS-7 standard. It has a Lithium Ion battery pack rather than the NiCad pack most handhelds have. My LiIon pack came fully charged, no idea how long it might have been sitting on a distributor's shelf. I checked the weather forecasts daily for a month and used it on one day paddle before even thinking about a charge--and the battery indicator was only halfway down. You couldn't do this with NiCad's. They lose 1-2% of their charge _every_ day. The M1-V is just a little bigger than my Nokia 252 cell phone. (Not tiny like the new flip phones, but much smaller than the average handheld VHF) The Standard Horizon HX-460S has a similar LiIon pack. It is about the same width and thickness as the average VHF, but is about 1/2 the height. It has an aluminum chassis--very, very tough! It also has separate squelch and volume knobs, which are easier to operate with gloved hands than the Icom M1-V. Both of these radios fit very well in a normal sized PFD pocket. Both have very high reviews. It's like the Canon vs. Nikon debate--pick the one whose ergonomics and features fit you best. The battery life of these radios is so great that alkalines are all but unnecessary. The only drawback to not having an alkaline tray available is for a long expedition where it would be preferable to have several changes of alkalines along. For day or weeklong use, they're unbeatable. Shawn Great stuff seeking new owners in Yahoo! Auctions! http://auctions.yahoo.com *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Tue Jan 29 2002 - 07:35:35 PST
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