Ray Marine VHF replacement

cbruck

Member
Jul 5, 2016
40
Ocean Springs MS
Boat Info
2010 SR Sundancer 390 I/O's with 496 MAGs and Axius Drive
Engines
496 MAG's
My ray marine vhf has died and it appears to be too old to repair (12 yrs). I can buy the self contained unit for a third of the price of a new ray marine one. Just that I have to find a place to mount the new unit and then I have a dead speaker and handset from the old unit. Any ideas or suggestions?
 
My ray marine vhf has died and it appears to be too old to repair (12 yrs). I can buy the self contained unit for a third of the price of a new ray marine one. Just that I have to find a place to mount the new unit and then I have a dead speaker and handset from the old unit. Any ideas or suggestions?

I went through the same considerations and eventually just bought the ray91 to replace our old one. I like the concealed unit and the 91 has an AIS receiver that integrates nicely with our other raymarine stuff. The standalone standard horizon units do a similar thing and are about half the price so like you said, if you find a place to mount it they'll work the same. I didn't have a good spot for a full unit on the dash...
 
My ray marine vhf has died and it appears to be too old to repair (12 yrs). I can buy the self contained unit for a third of the price of a new ray marine one. Just that I have to find a place to mount the new unit and then I have a dead speaker and handset from the old unit. Any ideas or suggestions?

You might look at Icom's M400BB. The "black box" unit mounts below somewhere, controlled from a command mic, sound from the command mic -- so the Raymarine remote speaker becomes an albatross.

Some previous owner did that on ours, works OK. I've had Icom VHFs on previous boats and they worked fine.... so I just added another M400BB to this one for redundancy.

I'll probably get around to replacing the Ray remote speaker with a smaller instrument display that mates with out plotter systems... when I get a round tuit.

-Chris
 
Thanks for your reply. I used to work on radios and 20 years ago the ICOM's were the best for the money. Good to hear that they are still a quality unit. If I go away from Ray marine I loose the nmea but I don't even know what information is shared and if you need it or not?
 
If I go away from Ray marine I loose the nmea but I don't even know what information is shared and if you need it or not?

I'm not sure what you mean by that, but both NMEA-2000 and NMEA-0183 are industry standards, so Raymarine has no exclusivity. ICOM's black box only supports 0183, but other mfrs offer black box units with NMEA-2000 support.

Basically ANY VHF unit you buy will support at least 0183. DSC and AIS data is what's shared between a VHF and GPS plotters. You could get a VHF with built-in GPS, but without that you'll need to connect the devices to fully enable the (important) safety features of DSC.
 
My ray marine vhf has died and it appears to be too old to repair (12 yrs). I can buy the self contained unit for a third of the price of a new ray marine one. Just that I have to find a place to mount the new unit and then I have a dead speaker and handset from the old unit. Any ideas or suggestions?
Not sure which Ray VHF you have, but sounds like it's a "black box" unit meaning only the handset is at the dash. I have a Ray 240 that had been giving me a periodic "connection error". A friend suggested moving to handset port #2 on the VHF unit under the dash. Has worked fine ever since. Just added a second VHF, a Standard Horizon 2400 with AIS but didn't want to cut into the thick white dash. Mounted it to an access panel under the dash and ran a remote mic up to the dash. Added a Ray NEMA 2000 to NEMA 0183 converter to get the AIS from the VHF to the old E120 but it doesn't seem to work. I'll try going direct NMEA 0183 from the radio instead of the radio's 2000 port. Good to have options.
 
D69ACEF3-967C-4824-A951-2D666D1FBCAB.jpeg
I switched to the new Ray 91, and just made an adapter plate to adapt the new speaker to the hole from the larger speaker.
 
I have a Icom BB400 connected via NEMA0183. Works well.
 
You might look at Icom's M400BB. The "black box" unit mounts below somewhere, controlled from a command mic, sound from the command mic -- so the Raymarine remote speaker becomes an albatross.

Some previous owner did that on ours, works OK. I've had Icom VHFs on previous boats and they worked fine.... so I just added another M400BB to this one for redundancy.

Since writing that...

I discovered ICOM's M400BB only supports the standard PA function (TX only) and you have to manually control the foghorn. That wasn't evident in their online comparison chart back then, but after some discussion back and forth with ICOM reps, they've modified the chart to include that footnote.

MA-FixedMount-ComparisonChart-1122.indd (icomamerica.com)

My current intention is to probably swap out the new M400BB we installed for an M510 instead. That will give us automatic foghorn and both TX/RX functions with the hailer. And it looks like we can install it in the same place the original Ray240 external speaker (E45003) lives. The radio is wider, but otherwise should (barely) fit... although I might have to add a bit if an adapter for height since the radio isn't quite as tall as the speaker. I'll likely retain the Command Mic is its current location because I probably don't want a mic hanging off the radio if I put it where the original Ray240 speaker lives.

-Chris
 

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