The Standard Horizon HX600S LI was the product line leader last year in its original version. This latest version carries the LI designation to signify a new battery type.
The supplied AC charger will fill the 1700 mAH lithium ion battery used in this radio in eight hours. You’ll know the radio is ready for use when the charger light changes from red for charging to green for fully charged.
Standard Horizon HX600S LI
The HX600S-LI has an SOS strobe light that can be seen as far as a mile away.
Special Features
The HX600S LI is fully functional on the marine band and can receive signals on the AM and FM broadcast bands and aircraft band. It also had DSC capabilities, one of only a few handheld radios on the market with this feature. If it is sitting in its charger and the charger is wired to a GPS unit, the HX600S LI will transmit vessel position data along with the MMSI number when making a DSC emergency call.
Radio Controls
The HX600S LI has a top-mounted twist knob volume control and side-mounted pushbuttons for on-off, squelch, and push-to-talk.
Nine front-mounted pushbuttons control transmitter power selection, channel changing, weather channel selection, scanning, and band choice.
An optional headset, microphone, or speaker plugs into a jack located on the top of the unit.
Scanning
This Standard Horizon handheld has dual watch, tri-watch, priority and memory scan modes. All are controlled with front panel pushbuttons.
Operation
A quick selection of channel 16 or 9 can be made with its respective pushbutton. This radio can use all Canadian, International, and US channels. A preset key can be used to store and quickly recall up to eight of your favorite channels.
Performance
The HX600S LI performed very well in our testing, earning mostly excellent ratings on our transmitter, receiver, and audio system testing.
We rated the HX600S LI display screen excellent. It uses large block style numbers to display the selected channel and scrolling letters to list the channel name. The channel group and transmitter power icons are also displayed.
Battery Tests
This Standard Horizon radio lasted a respectable 15 hours in our battery life test. It passed the drop and submersion tests.
Final Thoughts
This radio has been reduced in price substantially as newer units have hit the market. This radio is well constructed, did well in our performance tests, and features reception on broadcast and aircraft bands.