Ssb

[KJ]

I was wondering how many of you have SSB or ham.

I'm travelling with three other boats (trawlers) and they all have one or the other. I think I missed the boat on that one. I guess you need at least SSB for accurate weather forecasts in the Bahamas.

Looks like I'll have to hang out with these guys over there. KJ

 

[Ski in NC]

I crew on some big boats as engineer- and do helm shifts. My fav is to use the HF to listen to BBC and VOA, and scan around for other stuff. Takes the edge off a mid watch. If not using it to listen, I leave it on 2182kHz which is the hailing frequency. I have never heard anything there. I gather this mode of communications is gone by the wayside. Still would like to get one for my ride, just for listening.

Some good weather forecasts given, one boat had a subscription and the coms were two way.

Anyone know more about HF radios? I'd like to know more about whether the 2182 is still active and if anyone else is using one. Know just enough about the topic to show myself the fool...

 

[CPseudonym]

You can glean some good info from these threads. PM some of the thread participants as a few of them are infrequent forum users.

http://www.trawlerforum.com/forums/s4/ssb-single-side-band-huh-12655.html

http://www.trawlerforum.com/forums/s4/ssb-nets-caribbean-8731.html

http://www.trawlerforum.com/forums/s4/any-hams-have-trawlers-7157.html

 

[denverd0n]

If you just want to receive weather broadcasts, there are lots of cheap receivers that will do the job. This one would work fine, especially if you add an external antenna...
http://tinyurl.com/nqx5dr8

If you want to talk with boats nearby (less than 50 miles or so) then VHF will do the trick. If you want to talk to people that are a long distance away then that is where a marine SSB or ham radio come into play. So, it's really a question of what you want to do with it.

 

[River Cruiser]

I just bought a used Si-Tex ssb receiver that is capable of receiving weather fax. For the price I thought it was worth having especially for travel on the Great Lakes.

 

[Ski in NC]

The last big boat I was on had an ICOM M7?? transceiver. One thing I found annoying was that it was very difficult to "rough" tune through the bands listening for stations. You either had to key in an exact frequency, or tune with a very very fine knob.

Is there any radio that has easy knob-based tuning that you can switch to fine tuning once you get a hit?

Keypads are a PITA. Knobs are good.

I found a college bowl game while out there 100mi N of Hispaniola. That was cool!!!

 

[FF]

WE use an ICOM 740 for weather fax reception , it tunes with a knob and the frequency is displayed on a screen.

Back in the day we had a 12V DC printout that showed the weather , today I think a computer could capture the info easily.

Lots of fun looking at the North Atlantic sea state during stormy weather!!