----- Original Message ----- From: <jfarrelly5_at_comcast.net> > My club is investigating buying several VHF radios for club use. Can anyone send me an SOP their club has created covering this subject? Does anyone have any good/bad experiences with having club property that is to be loaned to club members? I can see the benefits of several radios on a paddle and the headaches created if they are lost/stolen/damaged. Many questions seem to arise. How will they be stored and where? We don't have a building or even a shed in which to put common property. The type of radio seems like the easy part. Keeping everyone in the club happy with the way money is spent and the property controlled seems to be the hurdle. I thought this was a simple sport..........< The Downtown Boathouse in NYC has had experience with such radios as common property. Over time some radios have developed legs and disappeared. Others have accidentally been dropped overboard when a paddler would leave it on their sprayskirt while doing something. Others have gone kaput because of the inconsistent ways they were charged. Suggestions: --Get lithium-ion powered radios. The NiCads were a disaster because with so many people accessing them, they got abused to death. Lithiums are the least finicky for re-charging. With NiCad, you can't leave them on the charging stand more than 15 hours or so (whatever limit the manufacturer of the particular radio indicates). While lithiums are initially more expensive, the less attention to re-charging peculiarities means the radios won't get fried or wrongly charged etc. -- Put them under lock somewhere and run an electrical outlet into that cabinet. -- Have some signout sheet and one person in charge of the radios. -- Make certain that individuals taking them out do things like tethering the radios to their PFDs etc. Sometimes with common property people are not as conscious of damage and loss the way one is with one's own property. -- Go through the exact procedures for placing calls, various levels of emergency urgencies, knowing channels frequented by ferries, tugboats, police, Coast Guard etc. It is surprising how few people know these vital things. Do regular practice with the procedures. Figure out what channel or channels the group wants to use. See if the channel gets too busy with other users and have another to switch to. Here in NYC for example the ferries for some unknown reason use 2 or the 4 or 6 channels available for recreational boats instead of commercial designated ones. That limits the ones we can use. Why they can get away with this is anyone's guess. -- Have an easy way of rinsing the radios out after use particularly in salt water. Running them under a faucet is tricky as too much force can get water into the radios. Use under a faucet only with water trickling. Or dip the radios into a small bucket. I guess, overall, you need to instill in the people using the club radios that they are valuable and should be treated accordingly. ralph diaz -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Ralph Diaz . . . Folding Kayaker newsletter PO Box 0754, New York, NY 10024 Tel: 212-724-5069; E-mail: rdiaz_at_ix.netcom.com "Where's your sea kayak?"----"It's in the bag." ----------------------------------------------------------------------- *************************************************************************** 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 Wed Feb 26 2003 - 06:52:15 PST
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:31:04 PDT