How It Works
Your radio has three main operation modes: Normal, Scan, and Weather.
Mode | What it does | Use it when you | To turn it | |
want to... | on/off | |||
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| Monitors a single marine | Monitor a channel or | (default | |
Normal | channel and lets you talk | talk to another radio. | mode) | |
| on that channel. |
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| Monitors all the channels | Check a small group | Press | |
Scan | of | SCAN/ | ||
| you save into memory. | channels for traffic. | DUAL. | |
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Weather | Monitors the selected | Hear the current or | Press WX/ | |
NOAA weather channel. | forecasted weather. | ALERT. | ||
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In addition to the three operation modes, your radio provides three different watch modes which you can activate during any operation mode. In the watch modes, the radio briefly checks for activity on a specific channel, then returns to its previous operation.
Watch mode | What it does | To turn it on/off | |
Weather Alert | Checks the | Press and hold WX/ | |
Watch | channel for hazard alerts | ALERT for 2 seconds. | |
every 7 seconds. | |||
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Dual Watch | Checks channel 16 for activity | Press and hold SCAN/ | |
every 2 seconds. | DUAL for 2 seconds. | ||
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Triple Watch | Checks channels 16 and 9 for | Press and hold 16/9/TRI | |
activity every 2 seconds. | for 2 seconds. | ||
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##Private boats must monitor channel 16 whenever they are underway.
West Marine VHF160 Radio Owner’s Manual |