Hey Dan,

For years, I've thought the increasing dismissal of SSB in favor of sat phones, for example, to be a dangerous trend... The value of the 'party line' aspect of radio communications can be HUGE... One never knows, for a medical emergency in coastal waters, a VHF transmission might result in a medical professional on a nearby vessel being on scene far more quickly than a 911 call in producing a response...

I grew up in a time where boaters were highly dependent upon one another for assistance out on the water... Hell, hardly any boats on Barnegat Bay back in the day even had a VHF, you simply waved or flagged down a passing boat if you had some sort of trouble... It was simply a given, that folks would help each other out on the water, offer a tow, whatever... This trend seems just one more example of how the sense of a 'community' of boaters out on the water is going by the boards, and folks are increasingly retiring into their own little cocoons out there...

As you well know, once one gets beyond cell phone range of US coastal waters, VHF becomes immensely more important... Hell, in many parts of the Bahamas, for example, VHF is still used by many of the locals pretty much as a cell phone would be... And, no way would I remove a fixed mount VHF with a masthead antenna in favor of a handheld... I've just wrapped up a delivery where the boat only had a fixed VHF at the nav station below, and no remote mic in the cockpit... The owner uses a handheld in the cockpit, and with it's limited range, it's incredibly frustrating to have to jump down below to hear a transmission beyond the range of a handheld...

Your point about the importance of radio in a true emergency was certainly reinforced by my experience last year with Hurricane Sandy... It was pretty shocking to see firsthand, how totally unprepared the general population is for a full on disaster... In my neighborhood in the immediate aftermath of the storm, with my ability to simply move aboard my boat and remain reasonably self-sufficient, I was pretty much the only one able to do so... cellphone communication was extremely difficult for awhile, and by being able to watch broadcast TV aboard my boat, I was virtually the only one who had access to what was going on in the 'Outside World' for a couple of days...

We didn't get power restored for about 20 days in my area, and what amazed me the most was the inability of so many people to simply keep their phones charged... It's like 95% of the population have never heard of a freakin' 12V/cigarette lighter charger for their damn devices! By the time I was able to start venturing over to a nearby McDonalds to score some wifi access, there were practically lines out the door of the place, people waiting to plug their chargers into one of the handfull of wall outlets inside... LMAO!

best regards,

Jon