Marine FM Radio

[Sea Draggin]

It has come time to replace the Boom Box in the Grady. It had a Jensen that served it well for many years. I'm looking at the sony cx50 or something or other.

But, what I was wondering or looking for was a recommendation for a good marine radio to play some tunes on.

Thanks in advance.
Jim

[freebird2]

Jim go ahead & splurge & get the XM Radio you wont regret it.

[Sea Draggin]

Yeah, What I sort of planned was getting a mobile XM unit that I could use driving back and forth to the beach. Then have a station for it on the boat and feed it through the regular radio system, as well as play CD's.

Do you think that is a decent set-up?

[hrdcor32]

I have the clarion with sirius, so far so good

[Double XL]

Clarion CDM4 love it! Sirius ready! Big but easy to work in 4-8 footers

[freebird2]

Jim I am sure it would be it is in my Garmin.

[rich]

I have to second the sirius. I have had both xm and sirius and like the sirius 10 times better than I did the xm. Stations were better IMO.

[Sea Draggin]

Thanks Rich, thats good hands on input.

[JimH]

Most "marine" radios are really off the shelf products that are re-manufactured to be marinized. Add a conformal coating to the circuit boards, a piece of mylar as a splash guard, etc. There are some products on the market that are built for marine use from the ground-up.

Poly-Planar is one unit that is built for marine use. Waterproof front. I have a friend who put one of these on his boat 2 years ago. He has had no problem.

I put the Kenwood KTS 300 MR in three boats (including mine) and all have been in service for over two seasons. Two of them are fully exposed and mounted on center consoles. Mine is mounted facing aft and has been exposed to all the weather, year round. No problems.
You can remote mount the unit; Kenwood has a wired remote control. I remotely installed one with the wired remote control on a CC due to lack of space on the dash. The remote is nice with a digital readout, backlit, etc. Sirius ready radio.

These are two units I am familiar with. I'm sure there are others.

[BTH284]

2nd the polyplanar. No problems whatsoever in the past 2 years. Can add "play through" the radio tuner satellite radio no problems.

However, I do like the split system"black box" mini JBL that just came out that is Sirius ready. No CD unless you want a changer. But I do not see a changer working well in a bumpy ocean environment ( I have very limited experience with the marine CD changers.... Glenn ). This unit allows for no depth intrusion mounting and tucks the brain of the unit somewhere safe. Only the head unit controls are surface mount and waterproof with same standard as the polyplanar. I am seriously considering this one on my next boat.