VHF Reimagined

At the 2019 National Marine Electronics Association expo, Vesper Marine announced Cortex. It’s a modular system with a base unit, handsets and a mobile app. Cortex systems can start with just an M1 base unit, which provides AIS and monitoring capabilities. Adding an H1 or H1p handset enables VHF radio functionality.

Vesper, which is based in Auckland, New Zealand, describes Cortex as “VHF reimagined.” A few minutes with the handset and its screen showed me what the company means. The functions I might want to access were almost always right on the screen. On the AIS target information screen, for instance, there was a button to call each target. This makes a big difference when