The Revolve roll-up emergency vhf antenna provides a smart solution to raising the signal above sea level. We take a closer look.
Revolve roll-up emergency vhf antenna
The Revolve roll-up emergency vhf antenna seems like such a simple solution that when you see it, you wonder why it hasn’t been done already.
A roll up material that when unrolled has inherent elasticity to curl the sturdy carbon/composite material in the opposite way, much like slap wraps do or metal tape measures do.
When rolled up it has a small footprint and would fit in pretty much any boat no matter how small. When unrolled however, this thing is long!
measuring up at 2,5m long you do get a decent wand to wave at the sky. If you have a method of strapping it to another pole for added height then you’ll give yourself several more miles signal range over the water.
It’s also quite light weight and versatile to strap to other poles and though the supplied velco straps feel like that might rip quite easily, I’d probably opt for gaffer taping this thing to a support pole as there’s plenty of grip. The 6m cable is stowed, wound around the main body of the antenna, so you do need to unvelcro that and put it carefully on the floor while you pull out the curled up antenna.
I’ve watched others demonstrate this being simple shaken open with a firm flick of the wrist, but that didn’t work for me and I had to manually coax it open. it didn’t take long and it snapped into shape quickly.
Rolling the Revolve roll-up emergency vhf antenna back up was simple enough too and much less tricky than anticipated.
The only thing I find a bit disconcerting is that it doesn’t “look” like an antenna. Sure, it works and does the job but it does feel like hoisting a bit of random novelty pole up and hoping for the best. I think this is because it a new concept to the market and we’ll be seeing these in the grab bags and emergency kit bags of lots of boats in the near future.
I’d like to see some more gromets further down the shaft, in addition to the one at the bottom to help secure it better as at the moment it has the ability to slide about a bit if not held in place with sticky tape.
Read about other emergency VHF Antennas in our Buyer’s Guide