New Standard Horizon GX2400 Matrix VHF
** Replaces GX2200 Matrix radios which are no longer available **
Notable New Features:
- NMEA2000 and NMEA0183 compatible
- Second Station wired RAM4 or wireless RAM4X capability
- Integrated 32 Code and 4 Code Voice Scrambler
- New E2O operating system
- Upgraded display with brighter backlight
- Noise Canceling function for both receive and transmit audio
See StandardHorizon.com for more information
Related Posts:
Panbo publishes select press releases as a service to readers and the marine electronics industry. The release contents do not reflect the opinion of the editors and are not fact checked by the editors
So this was a new product flyer, not a real press release, and I wouldn’t normally post it. But the new 2400 VHF shares some good features with the big GX6000, which still draws interest here, including today:
https://panbo.com/standard-horizon-gx6000-vhf-wireless-ram-4w-mics-finally
Hi Ben(s),
So the GX-2400 VHF shows only one antenna connection. Does this mean it has an internal splitter for the VHF and AIS signals such that the same VHF antenna can be used for both or would it still require something like a KJM Marine SPL100 VHF, AIS & AM/FM Band Separator?
Thanks,
Tim
One antenna for both VHF RX/TX and AIS RX. I don’t think it takes much of splitter when the AIS side only receives. The GX6000 is the only such combination I know of with two antenna ports, but I think that’s largely because it’s a variant of GX6500 which will include a complete AIS RX/TX transceiver (if it ever ships). You will not receive AIS signals when you are transmitting on the GX2400 and similar VHFs with AIS receivers, but that might be true even if you have two antennas unless they are well separated, or so I’m told.
That makes perfect sense. Thank you.
I’ve had the GX2400 installed now for a few weeks on Rendezvous. I’ve had the GX2200 and GX2150 before, with the GX2200 being a primary radio on this and a previous boat. I also have a host of other radios for testing including a couple of ICOMs, Furuno’s FM-4800, etc.
With the GX2400, I have the RAM4 cabled second station and speaker, plus the 240W outdoor hailer. I also have the newer HX890 handheld from Standard Horizon that I use for testing DSC with the radios.
The GX2200 was a great radio – good all around features, quality sound, and good performance. I liked the integrated GPS in it too, giving you DSC without having to rely on a network connection.
The GX2400 improves on the 2200 in a couple of obvious ways that I enjoy. First, it has a NMEA 2000 port so that if you wanted to connect it to your existing network, you can easily. The 2200 had NMEA 0183 which was fine, but that requires a bit more creative cabling since most of my network is NMEA 2000.
Second, the GX2400 has better quality sound as compared to the 2200 and I assume part of that is newer electronics as well as the noise canceling function they cite in the specs.
Third, I like the green activity light that comes on when someone is transmitting. It’s strange, though, as the light on the remote RAM4 MIC doesn’t do this – it appears to only be usable as a strobe? Seems like an oversight there.
The RAM4 MIC is very nice as well – similar lighting and controls as the base unit, easy to use, and I think the speaker might actually be better quality sound than the GX2400 base itself!
Finally, the updated day/night display and E2O operating system is quite a bit nicer than the older one which was getting long in the tooth. It’s much easier to switch between main functions, see a graphical representation of a feature, and is overall just easier and quicker to use. I really like it a lot.
If I had one thing to complain about it would be the !@#&* GPS which was the same issue with the GX2200. I ended up getting the SCU-38 GPS antenna just in case, as I suspected it might be a challenge. 1 out of 10 times, even with the radio mounted in the flybridge for testing, it would not get a GPS lock. Standard Horizon has no way to override the horrible beeping noise that occurs when this happens, and it drives me nuts. You also can’t override it and tell it to use the NMEA 2000 source alone, and ignore if the internal GPS doesn’t get a signal. Other radios can do this, and as long as they get a valid GPS signal, who cares? DSC should work fine. But SH requires their internal GPS also gets a signal even if there is a valid NMEA 2000 one.
I suppose I shouldn’t complain, as the GX6000 has had it’s share of grumpy NMEA 2000 issues, but I would think now that NMEA 2000 is over 20 years old, radio manufacturers would have figured out how to deal with this sort of stuff.
Regardless of this, I think the GX2400 is an excellent radio that allows for a second wired/wireless station, an updated operating system with day/night screens, and a ton of features all in a very affordable package.
I currently have the Standard Horizon Matrix AIS+ GX2150 on my current sailboat as it came with it. Is there an argument for upgrading to a current model? My radio is tied into my Raymarine chart plotter.
Unless you miss something I would say upgrading is unnecessary. This is a very capable VHF and will stay so for many years to come.
The comments about GPS and NMEA2000 support are worrying as it sounds related to the troubles with my (newish) 1850 unit which does not have internal GPS but has major problems finding and using NMEA2000 GPS units. It will only find a handful of NMEA sources (at best) and only accept positions from a GPS unit that is switched on after the radio is switched on… I only managed to get it to accept chart plotter internal GPS, none of the networked sensors that are the primary sources.
The disappointment becomes complete with SH support claiming it’s normal behavior for radios and denying problems exist… sounds like how other manufacturers denied their nmea2000 troubles…
Hi Nick, You’ll find more comments about SH N2K GPS issues on this GX6000 entry:
https://panbo.com/standard-horizon-gx6000-vhf-wireless-ram-4w-mics-finally/
I’m not familiar with your GX model, but I’ve seen the 6000 work fine with some network setups, flaky with others. And when I built one large network on Gizmo last summer, the 6000 could not see any of the many GPS sources at all. That was one of several reasons I divided it into two networks again, and now the 6000 latches on to N2K GPS every time it’s powered up.
It’s frustrating, I think, because Standard Horizon is making some great VHF radios in my experience, the super compact GX1400G I put on Junior the 100% satisfactory latest. But they don’t seem good at acknowledging and fixing problems. Though the latter is hard with almost all VHF radios because their firmware is not easily updated (the 6000 somewhat an exception).
But please don’t take your frustration out on the SH team here in the USA. I believe it comes from the top, and I’m hoping they will change their ways, especially after a good look at what Vesper is doing with VHF and AIS in the Cortex system.
To the GX2400 users, how does the updated Day/Night setting compare to the red backlighting on previous SH models? Usually red is better for night vision, so does anyone feel the screen backlighting affects their night vision on the updated models?
This is a good question, Robert. I have both the main GX2400 unit and RAM MIC and I find I have to turn the brightness down when using the radio at night with the night setting on. It’s not terrible, and it doesn’t seem to affect my night vision if I turn things down, but I could see how the red would be better.
I think it’s notable that Icom has implemented red back-lighting on the night setting of their color display M510/M605 product line. I’ve always been a stalwart SH fan, but I have to say I’m leaning heavily towards Icom on this factor.