S/V Far Star Overdue

[deckofficer]

Originally Posted by reed1v

ah the old days of ham. the new days of internet, voip, and now face to face chats. even without the code(which is a real shame since it gets through even with a tremendous amount of noise in the air), ham is a real equipment nuisance. now if they got ham onto the cell phone systems and worldwide phone nets, then ham would not be in danger of fading away. make it an iphone app.

since the average age of a ham is well over 100 years old, its a dying sport. in fact it may well be a leading cause of death since ham operators have a higher death rate than non hams.

And your of course pulling my leg??

[reed1v]

not pulling any legs. why not an iphone app for ham use? could easily make it password accessable. route it via large array transceivers. can be done with current technology.

and hams do die more frequently than non hams. probably because their so old and decrepit.

[deckofficer]

Originally Posted by reed1v

not pulling any legs. why not an iphone app for ham use? could easily make it password accessable. route it via large array transceivers. can be done with current technology.

and hams do die more frequently than non hams. probably because their so old and decrepit.

OK, you were serious. On any given passage I enjoy both for safety and friendship, to buddy boat. With the wide range of cruising boat performance, it would be two days into the passage that you would be out of VHF range of each other. Your now 400 nm from any land mass, tell me how you stay in touch? Or, your in a out of the way, pristine anchorage that there is no wi-fi you can snatch, and you want to share this place with other cruiser friends you know to be headed in your general direction, how do you pull that off? Sure, you can spend $500 a month for satellite Internet along with the expensive hardware, but so do your fellow cruisers to stay in touch. While I might agree with you that HAM, as a hobby is dying out, but for use in the cruising setting is still the way to go if you don't want to blow a lot of coin.

[atoll]

Originally Posted by reed1v

ah the old days of ham. the new days of internet, voip, and now face to face chats. even without the code(which is a real shame since it gets through even with a tremendous amount of noise in the air), ham is a real equipment nuisance. now if they got ham onto the cell phone systems and worldwide phone nets, then ham would not be in danger of fading away. make it an iphone app.

since the average age of a ham is well over 100 years old, its a dying sport. in fact it may well be a leading cause of death since ham operators have a higher death rate than non hams.

newer is allways better right?

The Green Thing


In the line at the store, the

cashier told an older woman that she should bring her own grocery bags because

plastic bags weren't good for the environment.

The woman apologized to

him and explained, "We didn't have the green thing back in my day."
The

clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care

enough to save our environment."

He was right -- our generation didn't

have the green thing in its day.

Back then, we returned milk bottles,

soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the

plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same

bottles over and over. So they really were recycled.

But we

didn't have the green thing back in our day.

We walked up stairs,

because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We

walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine

every time we had to go two blocks.

But she was right. We didn't have

the green thing in our day.

Back then, we washed the baby's diapers

because we didn't have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line,

not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts -- wind and solar power

really did dry the clothes. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their

brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that old lady is

right; we didn't have the green thing back in our day.

Back then, we

had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a

small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the

size of the state of Montana.

In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by

hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for

us.

When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used a

wadded up old newspaper to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble

wrap.

Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to

cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised

by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that

operate on electricity.

But she's right; we didn't have the green thing

back then.

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of

using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water.
We

refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced

the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just

because the blade got dull.

But we didn't have the green thing back

then.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their

bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi

service.
We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of

sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized

gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in

order to find the nearest pizza joint.

But isn't it sad the current

generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have

the green thing back then?
Please forward this on to another selfish old

person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smartass young

person.

The Green Thing

[deckofficer]

atoll,

At first I didn't even think reed1v was serious, just dishing out some obscure humor like you sometimes do. But after the 2nd post I figured he was serious, so I'm guessing he probably isn't a cruiser. Your feet are wet most all the time, if you have either marine or HAM HF, that is what you use in your travels, right?

[atoll]

i only have an icom m700 thats had a bit of surgery!,that is great fun to use and virtually free,i also have a sat phone that just for basic comms costs me upwards of $150 a month !

ham is alive and well i dont tx on it but like to listen in .
though given an emergency i would tx if prop is no good on mf and feel sure the old farts would jump to my assistance even if i am a pirate operator!

sat phone is great but you dont get that warm fuzzy feeling like you do on the radio, of having people standing by,a bit like cruisers forum!

[deckofficer]

No worries atoll, if you transmit on HAM radio for an emergency, your legal to do so under those conditions.

And reed1v, its quite OK that your not a cruiser, on CF we embrace everyone that wants to be a cruiser. Hell, I'm the black sheep of my family just for the fact I'm a cruiser and Merchant Mariner, so much to the point that one of my nieces do not want me to influence her daughters. For her girls, I will be sending copies of Laura Dekker's soon to be released book in hopes that it might effect them as Robin Graham's book "Dove" effected me in my teenage years.

[reed1v]

sailing since 1960 in my own boats. last one was a cheoy lee luders clipper. at 66 years old kind of landlock in boothbay with a stinkpot but that will change soon. ssb was my way to comm. simple, reliable, and did not need to worry about all the international regs that came with ham radio. plus the mariner nets were set up primarily for ssb use. yup the icom 700 was a neat little package that with a few "tweaks" could be used both for ham and ssb, not that i would ever do such a thing. funny, but never had enough time to gab when doing a passage. too busy trying to get sleep, navigate(before gps), worrying about keeping afloat, and sometimes(under ideal milk run conditions) just clocking out. the woes of single handiing.

[deckofficer]

Ok, I stand corrected, you are a cruiser and old fart like me. You might want to differentiate your terms though, as SSB is the type of emission used for both marine HF and HAM HF, we just use the upper sideband whereas marine uses lower. But again, welcome to CF, and to help stay awake single handed, I loved to chat up a storm on HF.

[reed1v]

strange, single side band was normally used to denote the non-ham sets that were sold under the term ssb radios back in the 60s-80s. dont recall anyone using the term differently. it was either ssb or ham channels. neither the twain shall meet. just looked at my old i-700 manual. says its a ssb radio. so guess they are wrong also. the old manual also says its not to be used for ham channels but an addendum shows how to fuss with the set to make it work both ways. got to love the asian ambiguities. sony also is making the same mistake. my icf-2010 also notes its use to receive both ssb and ham. i will write a note to sony to complain.

[conachair]

Originally Posted by reed1v

strange, single side band was normally used to denote the non-ham sets that were sold under the term ssb radios back in the 60s-80s. dont recall anyone using the term differently. it was either ssb or ham channels. neither the twain shall meet. just looked at my old i-700 manual. says its a ssb radio. so guess they are wrong also. the old manual also says its not to be used for ham channels but an addendum shows how to fuss with the set to make it work both ways. got to love the asian ambiguities. sony also is making the same mistake. my icf-2010 also notes its use to receive both ssb and ham. i will write a note to sony to complain.

When you put the word Marine in front of ssb it means something different than ssb on it's own. Different licensing and frequency bands from ham

Latitude 38 - Idiot's Guide to Marine SSB

Bit confusing really.

[reed1v]

thought only the marine community used ssb with the exception of the old vienna spy networks back in the early 70s.

[deckofficer]

SSB is a emission, as AM, FM is an emission. Sideband radio emission is more efficient as all the RF energy is in a single sideband, not a carrier and two identical sidebands. AM, FM are also continuous duty cycle, i.e. 100 watts, 100% of the time. SSB peaks with voice. On the receiving end the carrier is re-inserted so you can understand the speech instead of the donald duck it would sound like. Old receivers did this with a BFO (beat frequency oscillator). I also did this at the very beginning of SSB by placing a small transistor AM radio next to my general coverage short wave radio, and tuning the local oscillator to lay a carrier on my shortwave radio at the frequency I needed and bingo, donald duck was now readable.

Licensed since 1963, so all this isn't history for me, I lived it.

Again SSB is just a type of emission

HF 3~30mhz
VHF 30~300mhz
UHF 300~3000mhz
SHF 3ghz~30ghz

[atoll]

Originally Posted by reed1v

strange, single side band was normally used to denote the non-ham sets that were sold under the term ssb radios back in the 60s-80s. dont recall anyone using the term differently. it was either ssb or ham channels. neither the twain shall meet. just looked at my old i-700 manual. says its a ssb radio. so guess they are wrong also. the old manual also says its not to be used for ham channels but an addendum shows how to fuss with the set to make it work both ways. got to love the asian ambiguities. sony also is making the same mistake. my icf-2010 also notes its use to receive both ssb and ham. i will write a note to sony to complain.

don't tell any body but if you open the back it is only a case of clipping 1 wire to open them up on the m700

[deckofficer]

Originally Posted by atoll

don't tell any body but if you open the back it is only a case of clipping 1 wire to open them up on the m700

That, and sometimes the adding or removal of a diode. atoll has been around for awhile, he knows what he speaks of.

atoll, I never argue with the good folks here on CF about rigging, sails, anti-fouling, and many other cruiser subjects, I wonder why the same consideration can't be extended to me concerning aspects of Unlimited Tonnage, radios, and systems?