Cobra MR HH600FLTBTGPS Handheld Floating VHF Marine Radio – 6 Watt, GPS, Bluetooth, Submersible, Noise Cancelling Mic, Backlit LCD Display, Memory Scan, Grey

I wanted a handheld marine VHF radio for our boat and originallly purchased the lower model by Cobra (MR HH350 FLT) which is a great radio. But now that we're venturing onto bigger lakes I wanted one that had GPS/DSC/MMSI functionality and could transmit distress signals if needed. I mounted the charger under the helm of our boat and wired it to a switch so it's not always charging.The quality of this radio and its accessories is great and it comes with everything you need, including a AA battery tray. Based upon my experience with my other Cobra marine radio I know that the rechargeable battery lasts forever and charges pretty quickly. The menus and features used frequently are easy to use so you don't need to keep the manual on hand to remember how to perform simple functions. Program your MMSI number into it and you have a fully functional emergency radio.UPDATE: my first radio of this model that I received had a broken speaker. It sounded blown out and sounds were unclear. I had to turn it all the way up just to have anything be audible, and the button tones sounded scratchy. I completed the return procedure through Amazon and, as usual, Amazon shipped me a brand new one for no charge. The new radio works great and sounds great. I am very happy with the decision to get a replacement and now feel that I can rely on this radio in an emergency.

The BT functionality is great. I have it connected to my phone playing music while I am on my jetski. I have a cobra handset connected to the port and a set of headphones connected into the hanset.So 99% of the time I listent to tunes, and I can take phone calls or listen to text messages if required. If anything comes in on channel 16 9 or another triple watch channel, this overrides anything else.It has a NMEA0183 connection if you want to connect it to a network to receive the position data.The backlight is very bright which is great.There is a key combination to change the MMSI which is great.You can use the charger to charge additional batteries without the radio.You can't update the firmware.The reason why I say its second best is it has water proofing issues. A small amount of moisture got inside and it stopped working properly. Apparently other similar models like the SH Hx890 occasionally have the same issue.The connection to the handset appears fairly waterproof so I am not sure how it happened.The moisture disappeared after storing in aircon. Then it seemed to work fine, most of the time but would still freeze up. So not reliable enough to use for a safety device. Plus there were stirations in the screen afterwards.Unfortunately the battery compartment also locked in place after this.So a great radio but not 100% waterproof. If I left it in aircon after each time perhaps it would have been OK.

Great product

Pros: radio appears to be well constructed, comfortable in hand. Bluetooth functionality is a neat idea, reasonably well implemented conceptually. Replay is a nice feature and absolutely critical on this radio since you will not — repeat — will not — hear a single intelligible transmission.Cons: This radio is a completely useless piece of s***. The audio output on it is so ridiculously anemic that you have to crank the volume all the way and hold the speaker directly to your ear. My ICOM I could hear in the engine room, this one you can’t even hear on the bridge. I made the mistake of throwing out the packaging or I would have returned this immediately. Other features like DSC, Bluetooth, GPS are great but the radio completely fails at its main purpose — being a radio. Audio is tinny — I’m not expecting a handheld speaker to drop beats — but the poor coast guard on 16 sounds like a prepubescent dolphin sucking on helium.Battery life is abysmal for its size, I cannot complete an 8 hour shift with this. Belt clip is so flimsy it is as though it were manufactured out of american cheese. Not the good stuff either. The cheap “american cheese food product” crap on the bottom shelf. Honestly I don’t know if the reviews section of Amazon provides enough characters to adequately describe this $250 consummate piece of garbage.Thanks a lot Cobra. No wonder you always lost to GI Joe.

i bought this because of the coast guard requirement and have found it easy to use

Muy buena calidad, un poco complicado de usarse.....

I've been using this radio for about six months. So far I've been extremely happy with it. So far it's been completely waterproof and even though it has a "burp" feature to clear the speaker I've never needed to use it. Mostly I use it sailing on small boats. I especially like the memory feature that lets me pick the channels I want to cycle through instead of just monitoring everything. It also has "trip watch" that'll let you monitor a chosen channel while also cycling 9 and 16.I work on the water for a living and this radio made going back to the issued radio extremely frustrating.The box includes a charger, backup battery holder (6AA) and a DC adaptor plug.Battery life is about 2-4 days if you aren't transmitting often. Probably a lot shorter for heavy use.The one downside I would say is the bulky plastic construction makes it feel big and cheap compared to similar handhelds when you first pull it from the box. Those both turned out to be positive though because it fit my hand so we'll and the size helps it float.This probably isn't the radio for you if you're fifty feet off the water in an air conditioned pilot house. Perfect for someone headed out in a small sailboat.