OK, I am HF certified... now what?

[GILow]

Originally Posted by Wotname

That's for TV...

Yeah, SBS.

[El Pinguino]

SBS - SSB - whatever - I still want one.....

[Mirage Gecko]

Someone mentioned getting HF weather on a $100 unit what type of radio would that be please?

[GILow]

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

SBS - SSB - whatever - I still want one.....

Yeah, right until the guy from Mars lands on your foredeck and demands to know why you are screwing up his TV reception.


Sent from my iPad using Cruisers Sailing Forum

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by Mirage Gecko

Someone mentioned getting HF weather on a $100 unit what type of radio would that be please?

Weather by voice and fax from Charleville and Wiluna can be received with a number of quite cheap SSB capable portables such as the Tecsun 660/680/880, Sony 7600, or Sangean 909X. Apart from the Sangean which is a bit pricey they run between $A100 to $A200 at the moment... prices have taken a bit of a knock with the fall in the $A.

Tecsun PL660 Black PLL FM Stereo MW LW SW SSB AIR Band English Version | eBay

Anon-co are very good to deal with.

Lots of discussion about this on CF if you look around ....

[svlamorocha]

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

Interesting... I have one ashore where it is a great little radio... however that is on regulated 12v.....

Does your power supply have the little screw to adjust voltage? If you play around with that between 11.5 and 13.5V and have a power meter installed you can see the effect of voltage on power. That was painful learning to me.
If you end up running this test please share the results. With a lot of luck not all 718s are the same and there is a way to make mine less sensitive to voltage.
Cheers


Sent from my GT-I9192 using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[svlamorocha]

Originally Posted by Rustic Charm

I've tried several times on a vhf equipped dsc, but so far havnt reached anyone.

Are you in the US? Close to the ocean? If so you will very likdly be in range of a USCG station that will have anautomated rig that responds to "test" calls sent to a generic USCG MMSI. This has worked fine on various boats in various places between Florida and Chesapeake.

That does not mean that a human will bother to answer a"normal"call. It just means that you know the systems at both ends work. Please yell if you want more detail.



Sent from my GT-I9192 using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[El Pinguino]

Having been reminded by Jim the other day that there still may be issues with the Icom 801/802 radios I asked the question..'what else is there?'

Bit of research has only turned up three radios without going totally into big ship stuff.

The SEA 245 http://www.seacomcorp.com/pdfs/SEA_245.pdf
The Furuno 2575 Furuno FS2575 Price Radiotelephone SSB
..and the JRC jss2150 JRC JSS-2150A2 Price SSB-HF Radio with DSC, 150 Watts Sea area A2

None are exactly cheap....

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by svlamorocha

Does your power supply have the little screw to adjust voltage? If you play around with that between 11.5 and 13.5V and have a power meter installed you can see the effect of voltage on power. That was painful learning to me.
If you end up running this test please share the results. With a lot of luck not all 718s are the same and there is a way to make mine less sensitive to voltage.
Cheers


Sent from my GT-I9192 using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

My shoreside power supply is pretty 'dumb'... I think the output is fixed but I shall look when back at Campo del Pingo next week.

I think most radios are affected by lower than optimum voltage .. but maybe some more so than others... which is why so many run their engines when transmitting.
Ping

[Wotname]

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

Having been reminded by Jim the other day that there still may be issues with the Icom 801/802 radios I asked the question..'what else is there?'

Bit of research has only turned up three radios without going totally into big ship stuff.

The SEA 245 http://www.seacomcorp.com/pdfs/SEA_245.pdf
The Furuno 2575 Furuno FS2575 Price Radiotelephone SSB
..and the JRC jss2150 JRC JSS-2150A2 Price SSB-HF Radio with DSC, 150 Watts Sea area A2

None are exactly cheap....

A bit more research shows Barrett 2050 HF and 2030 HF units. Both are pretty robust and marketed in Oz, SE Asia and maybe Europe.

Presumably Codan produce their NGT range in a mobile configuration??

Athough neither are DSC capable AFAIK.

[ka4wja]

Jim and Ping,
A couple points of clarification...

As far as I know (with > 40 years of HF comms experience, including 11 years personal experience with my two M-802's, multiple other's M-802's, multiple discussions with Icom including Icom Japan, etc.), there were only two product-wide issues (defects) in the M-802....
a) the "clipping issue"..
b) intermittent inability / refusal to "tune" the AT-140...


--- The "clipping issue" was the one where Icom America refused to admit there could possibly be a problem....it took cruisers (especially those from S. Cal, and those in Mexico / C. Amer) to physically show the icom America engineers / technicians that there WAS a problem...
Good news is, once they finally realized the problem, they had a fix implemented in their shop within a month or so, and within another couple months the Icom Japan engineering team had redesigned the APC circuit slightly....
And, no more "clipping issue"!!!
And, Icom still does these clipping issue mods, for free!! (at least Icom America does, not sure about their other divisions)

"......as of 4/27/2008 beginning with s/n 0108261, all M802's exported from
Japan have the circuitry corrected, and the clipping problem is no more."
Gary Jensen, Dockside Radio
s/v Spiritress
AA1GJ"

Please read this thread, for all the details...
Icom M-802 "Clipping Issue" - Revisited....



--- The intermittent refusal to tune, was an issue with some early model/versions of the M-802 (I think those manufactured prior to 2006?), but as far as I know has been a fairly rare issue....and typically requires simply a second push of the "tune" button to force the AT-140 through another tune cycle attempt....

According to Icom America, this isn't a product-wide issue....but, since Jim brings this up, perhaps it effects more than a few???

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Why Ping, ain't you been payin' attention? At least two Comedians have had ongoing issues with their 802s: VK2PRA and VA3BLV (now out of cruising).

Some of the issues have been to do wiith the old clipping problem that WJA says has been laid to rest, but others have seemed to be associated with the relationshiip between the 802 and the AT140. PRA is still fighting it, with several trips back to the mfg for 'the cure".

The fact that Icom starting shipping with the DSP Speech Compressor turn On, was good!!
Then, they got paranoid and starting shipping the units with it turned Off....anyone buying one of those from a "discount store" or mass retailer, probably never knew it, and never got it turned on...
Those who purchased their M-802 from a reputable Icom HF dealer, got it turned On automatically....and have been plenty happy!!!

Re: IC-M802 Compression


Of course, we have the fact that some following the old Icom info of connecting a grounding strap to the M-802 itself, can exasperate RFI...but with the plethora of electronics and microprocessors on-board these days, having a 150 watt HF transceiver and antenna within a few feet of them doesn't help!
And, this is the same for ALL modern HF rigs, marine or ham...

And, we also have the Icom "mic cord deterioration issue" (which effect many 1000's of Icom, Standard Horizon, etc. radios of ALL types), caused by a Chinese OEM cord supplier's bad rubber compound....





Excepting those issues above, the M0802 is a fine HF rig!!
And significantly better than hf ham rigs cost 2 - 3 times as much!
Now, Ping, as for what you found??
A few clarifications are needed here too...sorry..

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

Having been reminded by Jim the other day that there still may be issues with the Icom 801/802 radios I asked the question..'what else is there?'

Bit of research has only turned up three radios without going totally into big ship stuff.

The SEA 245 http://www.seacomcorp.com/pdfs/SEA_245.pdf
The Furuno 2575 Furuno FS2575 Price Radiotelephone SSB
..and the JRC jss2150 JRC JSS-2150A2 Price SSB-HF Radio with DSC, 150 Watts Sea area A2

None are exactly cheap....

First off, in addition to being PRICEY.....
The Thrane/Sailor/Cohban, Furuno, and JRC radios are all 24vdc / 110vac radios....not an issue for commercial vessels, megayachts, etc., but most of us have 12vdc boats....

Secondly, the SEA 245 is not really comparable to the M-802/801, nor really much else....as it does NOT have an HF-DSC capability...(something I tried to school "Practical Sailor" magazine about, but they didn't understand)...
The SEA 245 does have a scanning DSC receiver, BUT it is set up to transmit a DSC Distress Call on only 2187.5khz...
(although, deep in the menus this could be changed to select another freq on a one-time basis, it is hardly something anyone but a service tech in the shop would even know how to do...)
This was a "stop-gap" radio, that SEA marketed to fishing boats who needed Sea Area A2 GMDSS compliance, cheap!!
The DSC feature of this radio was just added to meet a "compliance" rule, and not really meant to be efecctively used...


If you're looking at current production MF/HF-DSC-SSB Radiotelephones, you have:
For 12vdc radios:
Icom M-802...(150 watts...)
IC-M802 HF Marine Transceiver - Features - Icom America
IC-M802 HF Marine Transceiver - Specifications - Icom America

Icom SSB Radio Kits & Components



And, for 24vdc/110vac radios...at 150, 250, and 500 watts:
Furuno FS-1575 / FS-2575 / FS-5075
http://www.furunousa.com/ProductDocu...09-27-2012.pdf


Sailor/Thrane/Cohban 6310, 6320, 6350
SAILOR 6000 Series - On Your Frequency
BTW, the 6350 is my fav marine HF rig!! But at about $14,000 USD....it will never be on my boat!


JRC JSS-2150, 2250, 2500,
http://www.jrcamerica.com/img/produc...20brochure.pdf






Oh, and yes....I too carry an old MFJ tuner, as my back-up / emergency tuner....(and extra GTO-15, and whip, etc...)

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

And I think that Matt may have been referring to me as the user of an elderly MFJ manual tuner. It is now almost 30 years of full time on board use, and it still works... and when we were dismasted in I-one, it tuned a length of scrap wire laid over the dodger and onto the foredeck. Dunno if an AT would have done that. I surely would like the ease of an auto tuner, but have not as yet gone that route.

And, for "back-up" / emergency use, there is nothing wrong with it!!

For everyday use....either it's a pain to use/tune, 'cause the tuner is aft at the base of the antenna, away from the rig...or you place it near the rig and have transmit RFI issues on-board (many times distorted transmit audio, etc.)

If you do choose a manual tuner (why, I don't know, excpt for the $$$), it is best to place at the antenna feed location, away from the rig, and have a tuner card (i.e. "cheat sheet") next to the tuner that you refer to, to adjust the settings accordingly....
But, this would NOT be something most average sailors would be able to do in an emergency situation....(hence "auto-tuners"....and now HF-DSC radios...)



I hope my clarifications are not taken as corrections, just friendly clarifications!

fair winds...

John

[El Pinguino]

No probs John re those other radios.... it is as I suspected... a very short list.......

Regarding spares.... I don't carry any.

I just have a 710 with pactor, AT 130, and backstay ant... and a 706 , Signalink stuff, AT140 and whip..... ( both radios are 'opened up' so can do emergency stuff either way) oh I do carry a dipole cut for 20 which I suppose counts as a spare.... and a RigExpert AA54 and a bit of other stuff.....

[El Pinguino]

And also.... John, what do you know about running assorted models of HF radios at less than optimum voltage levels? ..As mentioned by svLaMoracha above.

[rgleason]

Ping that sounds like a lot of redundancy.

[ka4wja]

Ping,
I know a good deal about it...

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

And also.... John, what do you know about running assorted models of HF radios at less than optimum voltage levels? ..As mentioned by svLaMoracha above.

But, off to dinner....more later..

John