![]() ![]() ![]() Nearly all portable airborne radios offer roughly 1 watt of transmit power (which is still way more than your average cell phone). They must be small enough to stow in a map pocket but large enough for easy use in high-workload emergencies. Portables must have a high-end transmitter with a modulator that can reach reasonable distances at altitude. The playing field for handheld VHF radios is broad, but not all units are created equal. For homebuilders, the popular portable transceiver can be either a backup to a pair of com radios in the stack, a second com to pick up ATIS or listen in on Flight Watch, or for those of you flying light designs, it might be your only means of wireless communication. One arrow in the quiver of redundancy is the handheld VHF com radio. As in, what will happen when Equipment X doesn’t work? Can I get to my destination safely with what I have left? And what if Equipment Y also fails? So it goes until you’re left with nothing more than engine power, a book of matches and a roll of duct tape. ![]() Pilots who routinely fly in instrument conditions tend to spend a lot of time thinking about failures. ![]()
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March 2023
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