cougarmeat
Paddler
This is a preseason note to possibly save some people the grief I went through. Though the Marine Channels are on consistent frequencies across radios - channel 16 is the frequency as channel 16 on another radio - that is not the case with weather channels. Specifically, West Marine radios - which are rebranded Uniden radios - number their weather channels differently than Standard Horizon.
So you can be listening to weather channel 4 on your Uniden (West Marine) radio and not hear that weather station on your Standard Radio - because the frequency designated for weather channel 4 is different for each of those two radios. If I recall, channel 4 on the West Marine was the same a Channel 7 on the Standard - something like that.
I thought one of the radios was broken because it couldn't "hear" the weather station on one when both were on the same channel. I even had a friend make a portable, take apart and fit inside a 1.5 inch diameter (about 18 inches long) PVC pipe beam antenna to give me better reception. The beam worked great - but turned out to be unnecessary. Once I opened the user manual and compared the weather channel frequencies assigned to each channel, I saw they were different. If channel 4 is picking up the weather forecast on frequency 162.450 MHz on radio A, no matter how good an antenna is connected to radio B, it will not hear the weather station on channel 4 if ITS channel 4 is on frequency 162.500 MHz.
On the plus side, though the receive portion of my antenna is optimized for the weather stations, the transmit portion was optimized for Marine Channel 16 (and other communication channels). So if I am "out there" (and have that antenna with me), I can reach out pretty far.
I'd lend it to people on Jones Island who wanted to communicate with their friends back in Anacortes. I'm sure those Anacortes friends were on a boat so it was Marine-to-Marine contact.
So you can be listening to weather channel 4 on your Uniden (West Marine) radio and not hear that weather station on your Standard Radio - because the frequency designated for weather channel 4 is different for each of those two radios. If I recall, channel 4 on the West Marine was the same a Channel 7 on the Standard - something like that.
I thought one of the radios was broken because it couldn't "hear" the weather station on one when both were on the same channel. I even had a friend make a portable, take apart and fit inside a 1.5 inch diameter (about 18 inches long) PVC pipe beam antenna to give me better reception. The beam worked great - but turned out to be unnecessary. Once I opened the user manual and compared the weather channel frequencies assigned to each channel, I saw they were different. If channel 4 is picking up the weather forecast on frequency 162.450 MHz on radio A, no matter how good an antenna is connected to radio B, it will not hear the weather station on channel 4 if ITS channel 4 is on frequency 162.500 MHz.
On the plus side, though the receive portion of my antenna is optimized for the weather stations, the transmit portion was optimized for Marine Channel 16 (and other communication channels). So if I am "out there" (and have that antenna with me), I can reach out pretty far.
I'd lend it to people on Jones Island who wanted to communicate with their friends back in Anacortes. I'm sure those Anacortes friends were on a boat so it was Marine-to-Marine contact.
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