susiewho's Full Review: Cobra MR HH125 1 or 3 Watt HandHeld VHF Radio
We recently invested in a dinghy. We live on water at a fixed bridge and needed water transportation to get under it when tides were too high for our boat to go under the bridge. We love the dinghy but we wanted to make sure we were safe on it. On our regular boat we have a radio. We needed a radio for the dinghy in case we had an emergency and needed to reach rescue of any sort. It's also a good navigational device.
Besides calling for help you can also get information from other boaters and talk to the bridge control people. You can actually make a radiotelephone call to anyone in the world from this little device by connecting to a marine operator or check the weather.
For weather reports, another important piece of information, it will connect you with NOAA, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. You will also receive alerts on it in case of a weather emergency. A special tone will be sent to the area of your choice.
Hubby decided on the Cobra MR HH125. This is a waterproof hand held device that gives you access to several channels and is waterproof. It has a little wrist loop that is important. You don't want to drop this overboard and although it's waterproof most of the water you would be in would be too deep for any chance of retrieval in case it goes overboard. It would plummet. This wrist loop can be removed.
When you purchase your CObra MR HHH 125 you get your radio, wrist loop, power cord, spring loaded belt clip, 5 rechargeable NIMH batteries and instruction book. You just install the batteries and charge up your radio in your car or boat. There is a battery icon that will show you when you need to recharge. It has a power/volume control, power saver, speaker, talk button, squelch control, scan button, up down channel buttons, key lock, LED backlight key lock button to prevent accidental channel changes,high low power button so you can select 1 to 3 watts of power.
You should opt for the low for short range communicating, it will conserve battery power. and an antenae. The manual suggests that you keep spare batteries on hand. The Cobra ran us only $49.99 at our local boat store in Pompano The radio has to be programmed in the set up mode. You start with marine standby mode and press and hold the enter/set up button for 30 seconds to start programming. You will see the channel map pop up, U, I C, will display on your screen then you proceed with your icons, do enter set up to save your entry and continue. It's all in the instruction book and gives you the simple step by step accompanied by pictures. I was able to follow this. It's almost child like it's so easy and I am not mechanically inclined at all.
The screen on the radio is 2" x 1" and the displays are easy to read even with my old eyes. The buttons are easy to read offfering both words and arrows. The lettering is above each button except for enter, on and hold. Your up down arrows are right in the top center of the buttons with enter underneath. Your volume/off button is a round thick button on the op near the antennae. The arrows are on the side are charcoal rubbery with a vertical arrangement buttons. The buttons on the side are your transmit buttons. Top is push to talk, the next button will do display light and key lock, the bottom is squelch override, it gets rid of that loud squeeking, crackling sound when you are trying to send or receive messages.
This is battery powered and portable of course. It gives you boat to boat two way communication as well as boat to shore .There are several larger more powerful sizes you can choose from.
This model is 1" thick x 2 1/4 at widest xx 5 1/2 . Antenna is 5" tall. Cobra also makes Citizen Band (CB)radios, GMRS/FRS radios, GPS, Bluetooth enabled mobile phone. and radar detectors.
Cobra was started as a television repair service by Carl Korn, in the late 1940's. By 1987 they dealt exclusively with consumer electronics.
Use with Cobra accessories only. The VHF frequencies on this are for marine use.
Don't store this at temperatures below 4 degrees or above 140 degrees F.
Do not try and repair this yourself if anything goes wrong. Without the batteries properly installed it is not waterproof.
Do not use in blasting sites Do not let children play with this it is not a toy
It's extremely important to have a means of communication when boating
The Cobra is a very reliable and very necessary piece of equipment for any situation where you might need good communication. .
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 49.99
Primary Location of Use: Offshore/blue water Primary Type of Use: All-around recreation Length of Boat: 16-20 feet
Waterproof in up to a meter of water for 30 minutes NOAA Weather Channels All U.S., Canadian, and International Channels Visual and Audio Weather Aler...More at Amazon Marketplace
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