Ssb receiver

[Phil23]

I am looking at installing a Kenwood r600 Receiver purely for listening purposes to relieve evening boredom on board. I only wish to monitor vessels in transit etc and do not want to transmit nor have to install q aerial tuner. Being a launch I have no backstay nor really wish to send huge dollars on a wip aerial , is there any alternative, is it possible to make an aerial. A guy on the marind reckoned I could use my life lines but that sounds a bit dodgy to me.

 

[Olebird]

https://mfjenterprises.com/products/mfj-2320t

 

[alfamike]

SSB - receiver antenna

To just receive, you can just use a long wire. And maybe a ground wire.

The longer the better & the higher up the better. Keep it away from the sea water & grounds.

Or in place of a 23 foot tall whip, run a single wire up your mast on back side - that will work just fine.

Will it be perfectly efficient, & perfect for every frequency, NO - but it will work.

Good Luck.

Alfa Mike

 

[kapnd]

The best antenna for your rig is entirely dependent on which anchor you use.

 

[FF]

Listening is fun , but with a stable set and a cheap computer you can see weather and sea state world wide .


A copper long wire antenna , 2 insulators and a lead in wire is all that's needed.

 

[High Wire]

How about a portable ssb radio from Grundig?

 

[Hippocampus]

I know SSB is old school now with satphones. But having been cruising for years with both aboard definitely used the SSB a lot more frequently than the satphone. There’s no voodoo or significant learning curve with a modern 802 or equivalent. With a good modem (pacnor) you can do just about everything. Hope your listening is the first step in enjoying SSB and maybe proceeding to ham. They’ve made ham easier too. For a general license no need to learn Morse code.
Antennas should be tuned if you want good signal strength. It’s more important on send than receive. With a send/receive unit an automatic tuner comes with it. Even with just receive being close to the wave length helps. There’s lots of information about how to home build a decent receive antenna on the Internet. Just google it. Have fun.

 

[Phil23]

bare copper wire or is covered ok IYO

 

[Olebird]

Insulated is fine - I use the coated wire(thhn)from Lowes - the coating adds a little strength. For a radio you can use $100 SDR Play and your computer to listen to nearly any freq and any mode - some decoder software will give you wefax (weather fax) worth having on board on long passages and rainly days.

 

[Olebird]

SSB has been around but nothing wrong with that mode - some of the newer digial based modes are much more efficient.