VHF radios and paddling at night

Advice
#1

I’ve put together a series of blog posts that relate to paddling at night.



The series includes –


  1. how to make a securite call (“say-cure-ee-tay”) on your VHF if you’re worried about your passage at night


  2. what powerboat lighting patterns (including fishing trawlers) look like


  3. what to look for in a VHF radio



    Also there’s links to over a dozen VHF radio mayday, etc. calls recorded by the Coast Guard. The roughly 7-part series is on my blog, paddlingtravelers.blogspot.com



    As an aside, I’ve shipped out to the West Coast kayaker a couple of SPOT emergency gps beacons for demo, and will be sending another that way once I receive the additional half-dozen demo units promised me by the mfgr.



    If you’re interested in testing a unit, send me an email.



    There’s no strings attached other than your promise that you return the unit within three weeks and that you pay round trip shipping, roughly $10 total.



    For more info on the SPOT gps beacon meanwhile, go to findmespot.com
#2

Spot
A friend of mine bought a spot to try it out, tried to TM his wife and his cell phone carrier (verizon) is blocking the messages, probably thinking it is spam, so he had to call Verizon a bunch of times to get that resolved. verizon told him it’s almost going to be a case by case basis so if you have a spot and testing the non-emergency updates, try it first before using it in the field. It’s too new a tech and sounds like cell phone providers think it’s spam.



Jay

#3

Verizon works with SPOT

– Last Updated: Apr-15-08 1:51 PM EST –

here in California just fine. I have been using one since December and just set it up to send a message to my cell phone (Blackberry) to see if it worked there too.

No problems with receiving them on my phone via Verizon.