Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Remotely wonderful

WHAM in its 12V/120V charging cradle

Do you have one of these?

It's a remote control for our VHF. It carries all the functions of the radio except the emergency MMSI/position transmission.  For that you have to go to the radio. Uniden calls it a WHAM mic (Wireless HAndheld Mic) - it talks to the radio using Bluetooth.

In one way, it is better than a handheld radio: when we transmit with it, we are using the full 25 watts of the main radio and the antenna 65 feet in the air. But it would be useless in a ditch bag of course, or in a dinghy

For us it is a lifesaver tho.  Jane despises the constant chatter that comes in on the radio, which on Eolian is mounted just inside the companionway,  out of the weather but convenient to both the cockpit and the cabin.  So we mostly leave the volume on the radio itself turned all the way down, and I keep the WHAM mic out by the wheel.

It's a solution that is optimal for us, and it could be for you too.


First posting using the Blogger iPhone app.  The app is OK, but I had to go to the computer in order to get the picture to be above the text.  And of course there is that "keyboard"...


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4 comments:

SV Pelagia said...

But don't bother with the "WHAM4" -- it is garbage. Can't hold its charge. Sent it back once. same thing again. (Guess that's why Uniden discontinued it!) we've ended-up connecting it to a wired (5 volts) power source.

Anonymous said...

VHF chatter is annoying - I need to hear some of the traffic on Ch 16, but I don't need to hear the constant calls for other boats. If the radio is loud enough to understand, it's loud enough to be annoying. We may eventually do something like WHAM.

Robert Salnick said...

Pelagia -

Huh. That's odd. Ours has a typical 3-cell rechargeable battery pack in it. These do not last forever - I've had to replace it once so far (got the replacement at Radio Shack), in several years of ownership.

But I don't think I recharged ours at all on our recent 2-week trip.

bob

Robert Salnick said...

middlebay -

I'd recommend it - ours has brought peace.

bob

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