GLEN JUSTICE

ICOM, the well-respected maker of VHF radios, is going to great lengths to show that products like its M34 and M36 handhelds can deal with water. As you can see, they float. 

The M36 (above left) came out last year as the successor to the popular M34 (above right), which was released in 2006 as the first-ever floating handheld. It became ICOM's best selling radio ever.

The new M36 also floats, and it has another interesting feature: it adjusts to ambient noise. Like a car that boosts the radio volume when the windows go down, the ICOM M36 adjusts the radio — both reception and transmission — in response to surrounding noise. There's also a "loud" button that jumps the radio to full volume. The idea is to eliminate missed communications. 

We haven't tested it, but the idea, assuming it is glitch-free, sounds smart.

And, at $189, the M36 is only about $20 more than its predescessor.