Radio Waves

Have you ever stopped to think of all the different forms of radio used in a normal cruising boat?  About 30-40 years ago the radios in normal use were Radio 4 Long Wave for the shipping forecast and Seafix RDF (medium wave I think) for position fixing, for which it was awkward to use and not very effective.

How different now.  The list for our boat is:

• VHF (SSB for emergency communications and for talking to marinas etc)
• VHF FM for entertainment
• VHF reception for AIS signals
• GPS for accurate position fixing
• GSM for portable telephony
• SMS messaging, which I guess is part of GSM
• GPRS for receiving weather forecasts via mobile phone
• WiFi for computer communication (weather information, email, blogs etc)
• 3G as above
• Wireless networking between instruments (at present only the wind instrument)
• Radar for detecting ships etc

Ones which are commonly used but we do not have are:

• Navtex for weather forecasts etc
• EPIRB for distress messages
• Radio 4 long wave for shipping forecast