Marine Electronics

In our first article on marine single sideband, or SSB, radios, we discussed the relevancy of SSB and the benefits of having one onboard (particularly as compared with satellite communications), and we offered a market scan of the more popular radios available (see PS November 2014). The goal of this report is to delve into the SSB installation process, to introduce some popular accessories, and to present an initial report of our field testing; a more in-depth field test report will follow in an upcoming issue.

When it comes to installing an Icom M802 SSB system, there are a few rules of thumb that should be followed. Heres a look at our experience. The transceiver should be mounted in a dry location as close as possible to the battery to reduce voltage drop, but as far away from the antenna as is practical. The antenna tuner should also be mounted in a dry spot to prevent corrosion, but it should be as close as possible to the antenna.

For more than a decade, the Digital Selective Calling (DSC) distress call has been the digital-age equivalent of the familiar Mayday call and the preferred means of making initial contact with rescue agencies in the U.S. and around the world. DSC allows users to make a distress call by pushing a dedicated red button on the front panel of an SSB radio. Instantly sending rescue agencies your boats identity, GPS location and more, the DSC distress call is at heart of the Global Marine Distress and Safety System.

As email access is a big draw for many potential (and current owners) of single-sideband systems, we decided this was a good opportunity to see how our easy-install system performed in that area as well.Farallon Electronics, a Sausalito, Calif., company specializing in the design, sale, and distribution of gear for marine, commercial, and emergency service organizations, provided us with an SCS DR-7400 Dragon modem for testing.

Terry Sparks, author of the book A New Ham I Am, Made Simple For Cruisers, has seen plenty of HF radio installations-both SSB and HAM-and he noticed that even some expert installations fell short of those installed by pure amateurs. He offered this advice on how to avoid common pitfalls, whichever route you take:

Almost every sailor keeps some sort of logbook-from totally minimalist to absolutely exhaustive-and now, they have the option of keeping a digital logbook. We recently tested two digital logbook apps for the iPad: Logbook 2.5, from German company 2K Yachting, and WaveTrax from a British company of the same name.

Bear with us here. Before you get too far into this months report on single-sideband radios beginning, youll find it is incomplete. There are a lot of unanswered questions that we hope to address. Answers don't always come easy or fast in the work we do, but at the end of the day, we have to put out a magazine that reports our efforts.

To many sailors, single-sideband radio falls into the black arts category, those mysterious nautical skills (like anchoring or bleeding air from your diesel engine) that are discussed in hushed, reverent tones among bowed heads at most any dockside potluck or tiki bar where cruisers tend to congregate.

Both the marine radio and ham radio services use the same type of modulation, called single sideband. So when a fellow sailor says they have a single sideband on board, you need to ask, marine, ham, or both? At some point, any cruiser getting ready to make the jump into high-frequency radio communication will want to ask himself the same question.

Audio is transmitted via radio waves, with audio being impressed on a radio signal using a method called modulation. The two types of modulation that most everyone is familiar with is AM (amplitude modulation) and FM (frequency modulation). This is where the name of these broadcast bands are derived from.