About to Pull the Trigger on M802 SSB . . . Any Don'ts ?

[fairbank56]

The marine station license is $160 plus $60 ($220, not $300 plus)for the operator permit which you will also need. If you plan to visit a foreign port or even communicate with a foreign station with your VHF, you are required to have the license's anyway. The Icom M802 transceiver unit does not have any water intrusion protection at all. The remote head is splash-proof but does not use any gaskets in the housing or behind the control knobs. It is illegal to open up a ham radio for bands other than the ham bands. Frequency stability isn't the only reason for this. The M802 advertises DSP speech compression for greater "talk power" when in fact, this feature is turned off because with it on the radio no longer meets FCC specs for spurious emissions. Inability to meet spurious emission requirements is the main reason that ham radio's cannot be used on the marine bands. You don't want to get caught, no matter how slim the possiblity, using a ham radio on marine channels. The FCC levies some very stiff fines for non-compliance, not to mention the fact that you may be causing interference to legitimate users of the marine channels. I also recommend the SGC 230 over any Icom tuner.

Eric

[roverhi]

My memory inflated the cost. Still a damned expensive piece of paper!!!!

[SimonV]

Hi Sven. I have the 802 with Pactor mod. I found it easy to use once you down load the drivers from SailMail. I didnt bother with the MROCP licence until last year but you will need a ships station Licence at $49 Au they will give you your Australian call sign. I didnt use it often to talk(sshhh) but got all my weather, emails and GRIB files. As far as the water proofing it will be inside.

[SvenG]

Originally Posted by MarkJ

Its a very exciting time for you!

No kidding !

Lots of good input and suggestions ... thanks for all of them. I'm still digesting it all.



-Sven

[fairbank56]

Originally Posted by SimonV

As far as the water proofing it will be inside.

That depends on how and where it is installed. On this one, I had to replace the tuner jack, completely remove the antenna jacks for a good cleaning and repair circuit traces on a damaged filter board as there is no gasketing on the 802 like there is on the 710. It is amazing how salt water moisture can permeate to places you think are dry on a boat.

Eric