IcomM94d Vhf Marine Radio W/dsc & Ais

Bought this to identify boats while fly small planes. Worked great without needing to add an external antenna.

This was a gift for my Son. He uses it at work as a Firefighter Paramedic assigned to the Fire Boat. He like this Radio a good bit.

All boats should have a radio like this aboard for safety purposes

The media could not be loaded. I generally love anything Icom. After buying Icom’s, most expensive and top-of-the-line handheld this IC-M94D handheld VHF makes me feel like Icom doesn’t love me back.This uses a proprietary battery pack which will set you back about $100.00 if you can find one. Amazon doesn’t sell them so this might tell you how easy their BP-306 battery pack is to find. So if you want to go far from the charging base (which is sorta the reason to have a handheld) you are going to need to be very careful of the battery usage. There is no way to use regular batteries in an emergency. No battery tray, and regular batteries have no place in this unit. The charging base is clunky and unreliable. It seriously does not look or behave like anything I’d expect to come from Icom. The power cords to the unit feel cheap and fragile. Charging is unreliable. I regularly get error messages on the screen when putting it on the base. Often it will not charge at all. Occasionally it flys out of the charger base in rough seas. There is no way to plug the charger directly into the the handheld and lay the unit somewhere safe in rough seas. The charging base will not hold the handheld in any position other than straight up.One thing this unit does very reliably is tell you it got wet. I really don’t need my handheld VHF to tell me it just got wet. I pretty much know when I take wave in the face. I live in a rainforest and go out in the rain a lot. You might encounter water frequently when you are boating also. I want my handheld VHF to just sit there all nice and wet and work. It’s pretty annoying when the thing constantly tells you it just got wet and reminds you every few minutes.I bought this unit because of the advanced DSC digital selective calling distress function, and of course, because of the Icom name. Yes, it is difficult to program. So is a fixed mount DSC radio. You have to register the radio and it is not simple.What bothers me is the seeming lack of quality and how useless this radio is without its unreliable charging base station.

Needed a radio to communicate with wife on shore. Arrived quickly snd in good order.

Fine radio- advanced functionality. Operation not intuitive- a bit clunky to use. Not as ruggedly built as my last Icom radio, but still better than the competition. Battery compartment doesn't seem as well protected from water intrusion, but I won't know for sure until I put it to the test. GPS doesn't work well unless there are no obstructions at all above it. My phone GPS works better in that respect.

Icom is the best and this is their loaded out hand held VHF. Package arrived super fast in great shape. Happy!

Only the best! What else would you expect