VHF radio for sea Kayakers

As paddlers, it's very important for us to be able to communicate with one another when we're out in water, but it's also important for us to get to communicate with other vessels and even the Coast Guard, the authorities if there's ever a case of an emergency.

So one of the easiest ways to do that is with a VHF radio. Well, it is essentially a two-way radio that uses frequencies that are already predefined for marine use. So that means every boat out there should have one. The Coast Guard will have it and will always be monitoring certain channels. And then for your group, if you'll have one it's very easy to communicate if you ever get separated or even if you're launching from different locations and you can't talk to each other. And I'm also gonna show two short clips of an incident management class where not only do we get to run through a couple of simulations but we also got to do those with a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter and a U.S. Coast Guard small boat.

So, first there's tons of different channels. The most important to remember is 16. Sweet 16. That's the one that the Coast Guard and all other ships should be monitoring at all times, and then once you've made contact you'll probably be told to move to a different channel so you can carry out a conversation. Now there's dedicated lesser channels and those are the ones that are safe for us to use. They change from place to place, so just check locally what is available to you. For my area, usually, we use channel 68 or 69. Another important thing to remember is that unlike a phone, it's not able to transmit and listen at the same time and that's why there's a very specific protocol to follow when you're using it especially if it's during a distress call. You don't want anything to be missed.

So a couple of things to remember. One, it uses line of sight, so that means that, for example, the Coast Guard will have very tall antennas to receive from all over the place but for us, sea kayakers, we'll be very, very low in the water. So that means it will broadcast from our height as far as they can go before it hits an obstacle. So that's why it's a good idea to have other means of communications as well such as a cell phone or even flares if you need to send out a distress signal. Another important point to make is that if you're transmitting on a certain channel, every other radio within your range that's tuned to that channel will hear your conversation. I know if you're talking to friends on the weekend, you're not gonna be asked strict in your protocol but keep it polite. Keep it short and know that other people can hear you.