VHF Radio Speakers?

[carlylelk]

I'm replacing a Raymarine VHF 240E radio. It's a "black box" radio with two stations made up of a handheld transmitter and a separate bulkhead mounted speaker.

Are the VHF speakers all the same? It seems reasonable that they would have two wires like a stereo speaker and all be the same...???

I plan to replace it with another "black box" radio with two stations and I'd like to be able to reuse the speakers.

Any tech's out there?

Thanks,
Duane

[sailormed]

Speakers are speakers. Nothing high tech about that. You should be able to reuse the old speakers.

[NCGunDude]

Get 8 ohm speakers. That is typical for voice modulation.

The same for headphones. You're not looking for stereo quality speakers. Voice modulation only, and the impedance is 8 ohm.

I followed this advice for headsets and wasn't disappointed. Don't know about marine quality radio speakers, but you should be able to source them.

I did a google search for marine VHF speakers, and it looks like most are 4 ohms. Should be OK. I don't think you'll need amplification, unless a noisy environment.

[continuouswave]

In today's electronics almost all loudspeakers are permanent-magnet voice-coil designs with a load impedance between 4 and 16-Ohms and are more or less universal replacements for each other.

[Shrew]

Most VHF radios have a 3.5mm mini-plug port for external speakers. The 2 external speakers I installed both had the 3.5mm mini-plug. It basically looks like a modern headphone jack.

You might be overthinking this.

[hellosailor]

They are not all the same. Most will be 8-ohm impedance, and most will be able to work with most radios.

Now, if you had a commercial-grade radio and speaker, a matched set designed to be used in a loud environment? The radio might have 10 or 15 watts of audio output and the speaker would be rated capable of handling it clearly and without distortion. Stick that on a cheap radio that only had 2 watts of audio output, and you might not be able to hear it clearly, because the speaker wants more power.

Speakers have power ratings, for how much power they can handle before they burn out. Which is not likely to be a problem with communications (as opposed to stereo) speakers. They also have efficiency ratings, which tell you how much power they need to make a standard level sound output. A matched set from the factory will have all that matched to what the radio provides.

A random set you hook up, probably will work, but might be mismatched. In which case you'd need to go looking for a new speaker.

Nothing to keep you up at night. Worth trying it.