Impressive VHF Performance.

[SailingHarmonie]

We recently retired an older ICOM radio. A IC-M422. Not a top of the line model, but feature rich and definitely not a bargain basement item. Certainly good specs on the receiver.

Its death was the failure of the remote MIC. For us this is an essential feature, and not optional. Being more than a decade old, this version of the remote mic was no longer available, even on the used market. Time for a new radio.

It had never impressed me one way or the other with the receiver quality. Not good, not bad, it just sounded like every other fixed mount VHF I had ever used. I have used a lot of different radios, and they always sounded the same to me.

We never used the base station radio, only ever the cockpit remote mic. So we went with a "black box radio" with no faceplate, only a command mic, specifically an ICOM M410-bb. We ended up getting an amazing deal on this because of a vendor's pricing error.

All I have to say is Holy Crap! If I had known, I would have bought one of these years ago. With exactly the same antenna installation, the voice quality is 1000% better. I have to say, I had no idea. It's not that the range is longer, it's not--noticeably, it is just WAY clearer. You no longer need the magic "radio ear" to understand the average conversation.

I spent this afternoon transiting the New River in Fort Lauderdale. One of the busiest, most challenging waterways in the country. Constant radio communication is key to keeping clear of boats way bigger than you in very narrow quarters. I would not go back to my old radio for love nor money.

I do a lot of deliveries, and the average recreational boat radio antenna installation just SUCKS. My boat is not absolute top tier, but it is in the top 10%. I have no idea if the improvements I noticed would translate to the "average" installation. I strongly suspect that getting your antenna and lead-in cable up to snuff would be more cost effective.

But there is more there to be had with good, modern, equipment

In short, if you need to replace your radio, buy a good radio, it is worth it. And if your radio is getting old, and you are coveting the feature set on the newer models, you might find the performance fo the radio itself is good enough to justify the cost.