Handheld VHF Radios: Standard Horizon, Icom Dominate

The Icom IC-M1V takes top performance honors. Standard Horizon's HX350S is a Best Buy, and there are several honorable mentions, including Raymarine’s Ray102, the Simrad H150 and a minute model from Uniden.

Our test radios included 13 models from six ûmanufacturers. Most claim to be waterproof, ûand most were. However, two models failed our dunk test.

Handheld VHF radios appear to be one of the few areas in the marine electronics market that shows continuous change and improvement. Most models are now waterproof or at least represented as such. The size of these radios continues to decrease, and most recently battery capacity has increased markedly. Compared to radios tested several years ago, the current models perform much more like high-end commercial products and not low-priced consumer items. The only disconcerting development? Two manufacturers are representing radios as "waterproof" or "submersible" when, according to our tests, they're not.…