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IC-M33 – The Buoyant VHF Marine Transceiver From Icom!

In the past if you accidentally dropped your VHF over the side you would lose a valuable piece of equipment, but the Icom IC-M33 floats.

Your VHF radio is an important part of your safety equipment. In the past if you accidentally dropped it over the side you would lose a valuable piece of equipment; and maybe your means of communication with other boat users and HM Coastguard. Well not any longer! Icom has devised a revolutionary, new VHF Marine Handheld radio to solve this problem. Enter the, IC-M33, a 5W VHF marine transceiver that floats in the water. Drop the IC-M33 over the side of your boat and it will rise to the surface. Because the IC-M33 is waterproof to IPX-7, it will keep on working after it has been submerged. What’s more, the IC-M33 features an ‘Aquaquake’ draining function which will clear water away from the speaker grill.

The IC-M33 has an easy to hold rounded body that fits comfortably in the hand. A large LCD, with back-lighting, displays volume, squelch level, 4-level power indicator and channel numbers clearly; day or night. The generously sized keypad is also backlit, and settings may be locked by the radio user to prevent accidental channel changing.

The IC-M33 carries many of the features that users have come to expect from Icom, including one-touch channel selection, TAG scanning; one-touch channel 16 selection and dual/tri watch. A Lithium-Ion battery pack and battery charger is supplied as standard to provide up to 9 hours* of operating time. For users who want ‘hands free use’ a new waterproof speaker microphone is available which when attached will still allow the IC-M33 to float.

Preview products of the IC-M33 will be shown on the Icom UK stand (S060) at the London Boat Show 2007. Type approval is pending but the radio should be in the shops by the start of the season. An optional 3-year warranty will be available for this product.

Ian Lockyer, Marketing Manager of Icom (UK) Ltd said, ‘this product is unique. So many users daily run the risk of accidentally losing their radios; commercial operators, training schools, PWC operators, single handed yachtsman, the IC-M33 is the perfect tool to stop this from happening.