VHF, OK, BE HONEST, DO YOU KNOW...

[Boracay]

It's just that we were mosying round Sydney Harbour, and thought that someone might want to communicate with us, or maybe we should be listening out.

The Icom 504 looks like a nice radio. Good price from Defender.

Any other suggestions? It would be very nice to have a microphone control in the cockpit. Or maybe I should just mount a cheaper radio there?

[Wotname]

Yes it is a nice radio and defender price looks very good compared to Aussie prices. As to other radios, there are plenty out there in the market place and at least 50% of them are also pretty good. I like the idea of the second mic control, the 5 watt audio output in the speaker, the 25 watt loud hailer/foghorn output and is fairly waterproof. A second radio while giving some redundancy will require a second antenna. I normally won't recommend a single switchable antenna system. IMO, a better way to achieve some redunancy is to have a handheld radio as well - while not as powerful, it is more useful in general.