The New Radio from Entel, could be the perfect Superyacht Radio.

Expecting the best from all areas of life, including superyacht radio, is something that owners of Super-yachts expect, and demand.

This not only encompasses yacht decor and culinary standards, but also the more subtle things too.

There are literally thousands of radio communications suppliers globally, from a ‘one man band’, to large corporate suppliers.

Most of these companies are unfortunately not experienced in the Marine & yachting Industry.

A few years ago we had an unusual phone call from a man who was calling from a vessel located off the eastern coast of the UK.

The man in question worked for a company subcontracted to lay the service cables for the newly installed offshore wind farms, off the Lincolnshire coast.

He wanted a quote for 30 brand new Motorola radios, to replace the Icom radios that the company had bought six months before.

Our initial thought was that the Icom radios were low end models, that did not have adequate IP (Ingress protection) ratings, to cope with the salty marine atmosphere.

The client was requesting a quote for the Motorola CP040 handheld radio.

Whilst the CP040 was a good radio at the time, we tried to suggest to the customer that the radio would not be the best option for a salty atmosphere, due to its fairly low IP rating.

The customer however had a budget to stick to of around £6000, so that was what he thought he wanted.

To cut a long story short, we went up to the ship which had docked at the Port of Sunderland, and realised that their existing Icom radios were perfectly good, but not correctly set up.

The issue was that the company had bought the radios from a large marine industrial supplier, thinking they were getting the best price.

Whilst initially they saved money on the purchase price (possibly), the radios were not programmed and set up, to operate on the appropriate marine radio frequencies, for dockside operations.

The radios were actually on the Ham (Amateur) radio repeater output frequency, for a repeater near Blackburn in North West England (very illegal). They were also badly set up, and we were surprised they were being able to communicate with each other at all.

After we were authorised to carry out the reprogramming of the radios at 4.30 Pm the following day, we immediately drove up from Lincoln to the Port of Sunderland, to carry out the work..

The work had to be completed by midnight, before the ship left port, and was successfully completed, saving the customer over £5000 compared to buying new radios. They were very pleased.

Digital radios have largely replaced the older Analogue technologies in two-way radio, and the price is now similar.

The traditional names you may be familiar with in Superyacht two-way radio communications, are manufacturers such as Motorola, Icom & Hytera.

The Entel brand has however been active in marine communications for many years, and the equipment is designed in the UK.

Their latest compact radio, is the DX400 series, which largely replaces the old Analogue HX series.

The DX Series has been initially launched as a UHF (Ultra High frequency) band version, with a VHF (Very High Frequency) version arriving soon.

The main advantage for Superyacht two-way radio communications is the IP68 Ingress Protection rating of the radios.

What that means is that the radios can be dropped into shallow water, with no ill effect.

It also means that sea spray and salty atmospheres, will not corrode the internal circuit boards, which we have seen happen with radios with less IP rating.

With safety features such as Man Down available, the Entel DX series can be tailored to your particular requirements.

For more information, and consultation from a firm that includes a former lecturer from South Shields Marine School, get in touch:

+44 (01522) 740818