Back in October of 2022 I finally decided to buy a handheld marine VHF radio. I had been vacillating over the purchase for a number of months, reviewing different radios on line, eventually settling on an Icom M94DE.

This is the radio and you can find the details about it here: https://icomuk.co.uk/IC-M94DE/... 

It is a very nice unit and I was pleased with the radio when it arrived. The only problem being that I could not use it. Well, I could but I was not allowed to as my old marine VHF radio from way back in 1988 did not cover this radio as it features DSC, or Digital Selective Calling.

Fortunately for me, the West Mersea Yacht Club ran the VHF licence courses on a regular basis, so I signed up for the next one, attended, passed and duly received my new certificate.

Great. From then on I took the radio with me when sailing as its primary use is not for calling up other boats and harbour masters and so on, but as a safety aid. 

But then, less than a year later, I lost it. I got home from sailing one weekend and no radio. I could not find it anywhere. The next time I went down to the club I asked if anyone had found it and handed it in, checked on Naiad all to no avail. This was quite a blow since it was not a cheap model, costing £325 back then.

So, in the end I bought a new one. This one costing me £320. And I have used it ever since.

And that brings me to today.

In my home office I have an armchair from my parents old house that did not fit into their new one and was too good to throw away. It's covered in blankets so that the cats don't scratch it and I was rearranging the seat cushion whilst trying to read some code when I found something hard down the right hand side. I pulled out a M94DE VHF radio.

Strange, I thought, I was sure that I had put it into the charger in the other room when I returned from sailing last weekend and thinking no more about it I took the radio into the workroom to put it into the charger and found that I had not forgotten to put it into the charger last Sunday evening. Instead I had found the radio I lost nearly three years ago!

So, now I have two.

I kept the charger and cables from the original one even though I thought it had been lost.

The thing is, I don't need two.

I wonder if anyone I know in the sailing world needs a VHF Radio?