Re: [Paddlewise] SPOT - A few observations

From: Craig Jungers <crjungers_at_gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2008 09:10:46 -0700
On Tue, Sep 30, 2008 at 11:00 PM, alex <al.m_at_3web.net> wrote:

> > ago, our only emergency radio system was to call overhead aircraft when
> they
> > were visible and ask them to relay.
>
> Just curious - can a handheld VHF like Icom be received by aircraft, and
> what channel, - or was it one of those bigger radios?
>

Marine frequencies, while still labeled as "VHF", are much higher than the
aircraft frequencies. In addition, the modulation is different; aircraft use
amplitude modulation (AM) and marine radios use frequency modulation (FM).
So unless one of the radios (either the marine or aircraft) is designed to
monitor the other emergency frequency and modulation no communications is
possible.

Over the past decade there have been several radios (some of them modified
amateur radio hand helds) that can communicate all over the VHF bands and,
in particular, the aviation and maritime emergency channels. Some will also
do SSB (single sideband). Steve Holtzman said he found several by Icom.

I do think that there are more people likely to be listening to marine VHF
channel 16 that are likely to come to your rescue than there are people
likely to be listening to aviation VHF 121.5mHz.


Craig Jungers
Moses Lake, WA
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Received on Wed Oct 01 2008 - 09:16:45 PDT

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