Icom IC-M88 Handheld VHF Marine Radio | Marine Electronics

I use this radio almost everyday while working on deck aboard a tug boat. The company supplies Standard Horizon HX370S's, but only 1 or 2, so I bought an ICOM M88 as my own personal radio. I liked that it was small and light, fits nicely in your hand or chest pocket, but is the only ICOM radio that comes in an intrinsically safe version which was a requirement, so my choices were limited anyhow.

Initial use immediately showed one small but crucially annoying characteristic: the volume knob turns too freely, so much so that more than half the time when putting it in my pocket, the volume gets turned down -- a potentially catastrophic situation when trying to communicate during dangerous maneuvers. I've solved this by duct taping the knob every time I turn it on to use it; wait how much was this thing again...? Another annoying characteristic is the mic attachment. Standard Horizon has a simple thread attachment on the top, with a thumb screw plug when it's not in use. ICOM requires you to take off a cap, which requires a screw driver, then mount the mic, making sure you don't lose the cap or the tiny screw that will hold it on later if you need it; not very user friendly.

Then theres the issue of transmitting and receiving. For whatever reason, this unit seems to miss calls. We're not talking long distances, we're talking 500 feet max - clear line of sight - where the transmitting unit is a fixed mount station. The guy standing next to me with a Standard Horizon will pick up every word from beginning to end; my ICOM M88, about 1/4 of the time will miss the beginning of a transmission, or not receive it entirely. Likewise, the receiving units, both handhelds and fix mounts fail to receive transmissions from my ICOM by about the same amount. This is entirely unacceptable.

I've got 2 of these radios now, both purchased from Amazon. They arrived about 3 days after I ordered, via free shipping. Packaging was very good, because you could tell they got banged around by UPS/USPS during shipping.

I've used these radios countless times, and they have always been dependable and very durable. They've been dropped on the ground a couple of times, used in heavy rain, and even accidentally dunked once or twice. [Typical punishment you'd expect while communicating from the cabin to boats, boat to boat, etc.] We've even used them between vehicles during a couple trips and to stay in touch while fly fishing on the river. I've never encountered any battery or charge problems over the 2 years that I've had one. [Icom is a name I've grown to associate with quality over the years.]

The ability to scan user selectable channels, as well as, emergency or calling channels is painless to set up. (Just read the owners manual, which is quite detailed and provides the info in several formats.) The weather alert monitor came in handy several times, when threatening weather approached while we were on the water. I usually have one continually scanning here at the house, just for the weather alerts that it provides.

Although they don't get quite the same range as a full-sized marine radio mounted in a boat (and with large antennas), they do o.k. We've used them in place of full sized radios on a couple occasions, when water/lightening knocked a big radio out, while tied up to the dock overnight. Simply put, they've come in handy, and do provide a little extra convenience and safety. The new guys in our group can pick one up and use it without much difficulty, even though they've never used a portable radio before (everything was already set up for them).

I have used two of these radios extensively for sea kayaking (in various countries). I have also used them as two way radios (using the land radio channels) for skiing, climbing and hiking. The quality of the units is excellent: they can withstand shocks, bumps and being dropped. And they are definitely waterproof as per the specification. Sound quality and range are both excellent, certainly much better than the license free units I have used.