Radio - talking to ships
 

Does anyone know if there is a radio available which covers both aviation and marine frequencies, or do you need seperate radios if you want to talk to ships?

Yes there is a radio that covers both the marine and aviation band. I have flown with them both in Iceland and Greenland but can for the life of me not remember the manufacturer.

I believe Wulfsberg makes them also but they are expensive.

Rockwell Collins makes the AN/ARC-210 for military use - it has V/UHF aviation bands and marine channels. Not sure if they make a civilian version without the COMSEC features...

What you want is the Techsonic TFM-550. It covers all the bands. Wulfsberg makes a model that might work, but I'm not sure about its capabilities.

Yes that´s it Techsonic. Excellent radio and not all that expensive. I have flown with it installed in B-222 & B-212.

To answer the original question you will need 2 radios to talk to ships and aircraft. Aviation VHF is AM (amplitude modulation) and Marine VHF is FM (frequency modulation). Chalk and cheese. There may be units around that have a single front end to the operator that "looks" like a single radio, but this is only the controller with the different flavours of radio mounted somewhere else.

The Technisonics is a good choice. It covers FM in UHF, VHF - HI and LO. Fully agile and frontend or PC programmable with all kinds of functions including cross band repeating. It is a small panel mounted (ARINC 610?) unit. Be aware that if you are in N America there is the TM550 and for outside NA the TFM556 with covers a different frequency band in VHF LO.

We operate on a bit of offshore stuff here in NZ and use a Tait 2000 radio in the 3 heli's made in Christchurch NZ very good of all radios these rate very highly have got all the marine bands programed in and work's well very inexpensive try googling tait electronics

Yes, Giovanni is correct, and I should have been more clear in my post. The Technisonic is an FM radio, and won't cover AM aviation frequencies. You have to have two radios, but the Technisonic will cover pretty much everything except aviation VHF. We use it for talking to all our customers - ships, platforms, boats, everything.

The NAT NTX138 covers the VHF high band which includes all the VHF marine frequencies: http://www.northernairborne.com/productlist.php

Rockwell-Collins (ARC-210) and Wulfsberg (RT-5000) offer systems that have both aeronautical and marine band capabilities. Both systems have quite a few additional options and variations. Both are expensive (recently purchased a used ARC-210 system for around US $40,000). If you are looking to just add marine band capabilities to your aircraft, there are many choices for a small inexpensive marine band transceiver. Also, I believe the Collins and Wulfsberg systems are subject to US export control.

Yes like Gomerpilot said the Technisonic does not cover airband. I now fly SA365 & AS332 with a radio that is capable of transmitting both on marine and airband but like has been said its probably only the single control head with two radios underneath.

I had a look at the radio today but there is no name on the facia! probably some Eurocopter or French type of radio and probably pretty expensive, but it works well.

Just to be the Knob...

You will need the Restricted Operator Certificate (ROC Maritime) to operate the radio...:} :eek:

But... you can't install them in an aircraft unless they are approved by the FAA or Transport Canada http://www.northernairborne.com/sup-cert.htm

If you install them without approval, the C of A is invalid.