Good idea to spend the money on the marine radio.
They are expensive because the are built for marine use and specs.

How about putting the radio inside the boat and route the audio
to an external weatherproof speaker (amplified ?).

You can receive noaa weather radio on most 2m radios.

joyce


"Gary S." wrote:

On 17 May 2004 12:54:47 -0700, (JohnD) wrote:

I am trying to get a two'fer and wondering if it's possible. I need
to get a VHF marine radio for boating use on Lake Erie, for weather
reports and so on. It would be nice to be able to listen to
shortwave, etc. in a single, waterproof package. I was wondering if
it is possible to modify a Yaesu vx-7r or 5r to reliably transmit on
marine frequencies in emergency situations.

Not legally, and probably not well.

For safety equipment, a bit unwise to cut corners.

Many ham radios which include 2M will receive the VHF marine
frequencies (the weather channels are part of this) just fine, so you
would only need to monitor one unit for everything if you set up the
scanning correctly. You could then turn on a VHF marine radio when you
need to xmit.

Happy trails,
Gary (net.yogi.bear)
------------------------------------------------
at the 51st percentile of ursine intelligence

Gary D. Schwartz, Needham, MA, USA
Please reply to: garyDOTschwartzATpoboxDOTcom