A radio rant
OK, after yesterday’s absence of controversy, I have an equipment rant for you today: in my opinion the drop-in chargers for handheld VHF radios SUCK! If ever there was a device destined to fail in a marine environment, it is these things.
Why? The little spring-loaded contacts in the cradle which are supposed to make a secure connection with the back of the radio fail to do so in short order, either due to their weakening and/or the oxidation which develops on the contacts’ mates on the rear of the radio. The worst part of this is that there is no alternative but to use the stupid cradle. You’d think that perhaps the manufactures might plan ahead and put a simple little port in the radio that you could plug the charging cord into but nope, no such thing exists. So, when the cradle fails to charge the radio, you are left with an expensive piece of crap.
Now, to be entirely honest, we’ve never quite had it come to that exactly. Our first handheld radio, a Standard Horizon, went for an overnight swim, which turned out to be somewhat beyond its waterproof capacity. Our second one, a West Marine unit, died for reasons still unknown. Yes, I probably could have taken that one back to the store IF there was a West Marine nearby, but alas, there isn’t. Both of those radios though, and the new Standard Horizon one that we currently are using, experienced exactly the same trouble with the charging cradle. Whenever we want to charge the radio, we have to jiggle it around in the cradle until the light illuminates, which sometimes takes a considerable amount of time, even after making sure that the contacts on the back of the radio are spotless.
This is a problem which begs for a solution and I can’t imagine that it would be all that tough for the manufacturers to come up with one. Get busy guys!
EDIT: After reading all of the positive comments on the device here on this post, our next radio will definitely be the Uniden Atlantis 250.
Decent radio, crappy charger.
I totally agree with you! And why is it the big name brands (e.g. IC**) are the worst offenders?
Next one I buy needs to be able to take a plug-in charging jack as well as a cradle. I haven’t used the one in the link, but it looks like it has more charging options than just the cradle, and you can buy replacement chargers and batteries. http://www.uniden.com/marine-electronics/handheld-two-way-vhf-marine-radio/invt/atlantis250bkg/
Regards,
Doug
I think we’ll buy that one too if ours ever dies.
I agree, the drop in chargers are just not fit for purpose. Most marine radios are adaptations or derivations of the manufacturer’s “land mobile” products. Sadly most marine radios seem to be designed by engineers who underestimate how harsh the marine air environment actually is. Tinned copper or gold plated battery charging contacts are quickly corroded on board a yacht.
There is little point making so called “water proof” radios if their battery charging contacts are exposed. This only encourages the user to use them in overly harshest conditions.
As an experienced radio communications engineer and sailor I tend to use the ICOM range of marine communications products. Anything I take on deck or into a tender I put into a sealed aquabag.
All the very best,
Jim
You’re no doubt smart but putting a WATERPROOF FLOATING radio into a drybag seems like overkill to me. I don’t submerge our radio intentionally but it does get splashed in the tender from time to time. As it stands though, our current radio works fine with the exception of the corrosion of the charging contacts and the ill design of the charging cradle.
Have you advised the manufacturer of their downall(s). Rant to them.
No. That’s what I have this blog for. So that I can rant to YOU! 😉
I have two Uniden Atlantis 250’s. Two things I love about them:
1. They come with a spare empty pack that you can load 6 X AA Alkaline, or rechargeable batteries in them. Then you can charge the batteries separate, or rotate two sets of batteries out of the AA charger. Sanyo Eneloop rechargeable batteries are the bomb diggity.
2. The rechargeable pack that comes with them has a simple round plug on the battery case. So even if the supplied charger dies, you can use a universal switchable 12V or 110/240 charger.
That sounds good. My current radio might have a separate pack to load AAs into. I say might because if we do have one, it would be packed away with some misc. electrical stuff.
I have an Icom floating radio and this is exactly why I bought the spare battery pack that use AA batteries. So, along with the normal battery pack, I have a set of rechargeable batteries and charger as well as another set of regular duracells… three sets of batteries for it.
These marine radios need gold connectors to increase their corrosion resistance.
I also use Uniden’s Atlantis 250… that standard round charging port is really, really nice. No voltage converter is required, just a matching connector and a 12 volt outlet. I’ve never had to run it on AAs but I do keep that battery carrier handy just in case.
We have a UNIDEN ATLANTIS 250B. It has a cradle charger and a direct connect charger. It’s not the most expensive ($72 US) out there, but we typically keep it in a Pelican case when not under sail, and it is still going strong after 2 & 1/2 years.
Another vote for that radio. Keeping the charger, etc. in a Pelican case, while no doubt prolonging its life, seems to defy its planned usage though. A drop in cradle is designed to sit at a desk with the radio in it. If not, why is it made like that???
Yep. I have two, and they are the original model and 7 years old.
I see your point, but we weekend/week-long “sailors” have a different set of requirements. I have the cradle mounted in the cabin, were we can get to it easily, but mostly use the other charger when back on land, to keep the radio ready.
Plus, I have been a Pelican case addict forever. We have 3 that we carry assorted items in, whenever we hit the water.
YES!! And what’s worse, we couldn’t tell that it wasn’t charging because the light stayed green, fooling us into believing it was charged up. POS! Even jiggling it and cleaning the contacts didn’t help. This was a brand new handheld and charger too that never made it out of the cabin.
EXACTLY! I had the same experience. If it’s not making a good enough connection the green light comes on. WTF is that all about?
Hey Mike .. We love our ICOM IC- M24 floats, water proof ,scan ,Hi Lo , It has a cap that you unscrew and plug in a small charger .Love it very powerfull clear . And get this $169.00 on sale for $129.00 and a mail in rebate for $20.00. The down ide is even the most experienced captain wants to turn the knob on top to ajust the volume. This is where you plug it in.
hehe
So, no drop in charger? Sounds like a winner.
Like you I like things to work as designed. I like to fix things properly and try to avoid duct tape, pvc, and hose clamps. 🙂 With that in mind and knowing full well that anything can be fixed if enough money is thrown at it I have a couple of ideas.
1.) Spray some WD-40 on a paper towel and wipe down the contacts on both the radio and charger. This may have an adverse effect of making it loser in the cradle so beware. 🙂
2.) Put some small eye bolts on either side of the charger and use a small bungee to strap into the cradle while it is charging. This assumes that if you press down on the radio now it charges. It also negates everything I said above about less than ideal fixes. 🙂
I have a Horizon radio now with the charger cradle mounted vertically inside a cabinet. My boat doesn’t get near the daily use as yours as we are still lake bound, but that set up has sufficed for 2.5 years now.
I also agree with you, in that if it says it is a floater it ought to at least be able to take some spray while riding in a tender. 🙂
Good Luck
I have sprayed the terminals with contact cleaner, multiple times. It doesn’t really solve the problem, nor does pushing it against the charger, ruling out solution 2 as well.
Sadly it seems that having something work on fresh water lakes, like Lake Ontario where we are from, is no guarantee that it will continue to work in the salt air.
What these devices need is the charging system used for electrice toothbrushes. There is no direct charging contacts at all. When you drop into the charger the device is charged through some sort of induction. No need for any “weak points” in the water proof exterior. This cant be all that hard to do and would solve the problem.
An inductive charger would solve the cradle contacts problem, but at a price: the charger would either be AC only, or would have to include its own DC-to-AC inverter.
I’ve got a Standard Horizon that is six years old and going strong. I guess some of it is luck of the draw. However, I agree that exposed contacts on marine gear, especially “waterproof” gear, is rather stupid. The marine handheld radios should go to inductive charging systems now that they are available.
A good example of this type of technology is Duracell’s PowerMat system. If the small electronics manufacturers would agree on a single standard for wireless/contactless charging systems, then it would make building “waterproof” cell phones, cameras and radios much simpler and allow one to charge multiple devices using a single standardized charging “pad”.
IMHO, this type of standardization is long overdue, much like almost all of the cellphones now use the MicroUSB cable for both data syncing and charging with the exception of Apple’s iPhone for legacy reasons. This means that when we buy a new cell phone, we no longer need to go out and buy a new data cable and a new car charger…
Manufacturers… are you listening?
On the land side, the ubiquitous “they” have developed a pad system for charging batterys on smartphones. You litterally just lay the phone on the pad and the “force” magically charges the battery. I wonder if this technology is transferable to your system….?
Sounds like what Dan was talking about above.
I’m sorry for double posting, however this is too hilarious. After my last post I’m scrolling up your page and low and behold one of the Ads is for Motorola radio batteries! I love irony.
Those ads are selected based on the post’s content. Big Brother IS watching!
Sorry I did not know how to send you a pic of our radio so I shared it on facebook. I hope you include a section in your book about used and old boating equipment .Call it what you may I am sure it will be a hit. Ever wonder who tests this stuff??
Hi Brian
I found your profile and that pic. That looks good. So there is something that screws into the charging port to prevent water from getting in?
No experiences with the issues you talked about, but I may have a solution for corroded contacts.
Often contacts on computer boards become corroded, and the part fails to work. The easiest fix we have found is to take an ordinary rubber eraser (ones on the end of pencils work just fine), and rub it on the part. It seems to take whatever corrosion is there off, insert board back into computer, and away you go.
Might be worth a try, even as preventive maintenance say every 2 weeks?
I will try that, Andy. Thanks.
Any non-contact system that charges “by magic” is relying on induction. And induction relies on AC. When you are not plugged into shore power, that means an inverter is required.
We don’t have a handheld VHF but we do have a remote mic, which suffers much of the same environmental exposure. Ours is a Uniden unit, and I really like their approach to handling charging.
First, there is a drop in charger. Well no, it is more of a “shove in” charger. Substantial force is required. The drop in charger is powered by that ubiquitous round plug – so it is really more of an adapter than a charger per se. And the remote mic is also equipped with the same round plug too. Finally, Uniden supplies both AC and DC “wall warts” with the appropriate round plugs.
And finally-finally, the mic uses rechargeable AA cells… which in a pinch could easily be replaced with disposable AA cells.
Best of all worlds.
Bob
And you have no problem with the “shove in” charger making good contact?
It won’t help with design issues, but I use Caig DeOxit-D to clean electrical contacts. It will also help prevent further oxidation (unless washed away by a wet dingy ride perhaps).
Rubber erasers, while they will remove oxidation, are also abrasive and can remove tin or gold plating, exposing even more readily oxidized copper or steel underneath.
I have some contact electrical contact cleaner, which I have been using. I don’t think I’ve come across that exact product before. I wonder how different it is from what we have.