Is there any point in keeping our SSB radio?

[Jammer]

Rebel Heart.

[Paul Elliott]

Originally Posted by Jammer

Rebel Heart.

This refers to their satcomms going dead because of changes to the service resulting in an undelivered SIM card and a dead phone, right? So yes, there are lots of ways that your gear can let you down.

[gamayun]

I feel like this question comes up often and, to me, it's the same answer. Use it if you would like redundancy, an ability to make comms across a wider group, and for the shear knowledge that few these days seem to know how to use an SSB rig. I don't feel like I have an old school mentality because I have all the latest stuff, but I think there's something cool about gear that many consider obsolete (sextant, anyone?). To each their own.

[CarlF]

Originally Posted by Jammer

Rebel Heart.

As I remember, Rebel Heart's SSB radio failed first.Then the satphone.

For emergency comm's (especially as a backup to a voice system) - the InReach is hard to beat. Two way communication to SAR. Can go with you in a life raft. 4 day battery.

[PippaB]

I had an interesting experience with a VHF radio watch this weekend in San Francisco Bay. Heard about half-a-dozen calls on the VHF to the USCG for some form of help. In every case the first question was position, so I had that for every case of help needed. But the second question was “do you have a cell phone aboard skipper?” The inevitable answer was “yes” followed by “what is your number?” After that the USCG moved the conversation to cell phone, the party line nature of VHF was gone, and I have no idea what help was needed, whether we could have provided assistance, etc.

We still have an SSB aboard with Pactor, it still gets used, but if I had to spend any money on it it would be replaced by satellite.

[Jammer]

Originally Posted by Paul Elliott

This refers to their satcomms going dead because of changes to the service resulting in an undelivered SIM card and a dead phone, right? So yes, there are lots of ways that your gear can let you down.

There were many things that contributed to the loss of the Rebel Heart.

Communications wise, they depended on their Iridium service once offshore. Though they had HF, it was rarely used and in poor condition. Their Iridium service was shut off due to, in essence, a procedural and billing misunderstanding with their Iridium reseller, that could not be corrected once they were at sea, because there was no way to re-activate their existing SIM once it had been shut off.

If you've ever been at walmart or wherever and had your credit card authorization turned down for a cart full of groceries over real or perceived fraud or you sending the check to the wrong address or whatever, well, Iridium is no different.

In the USA and most other places, cellular carriers are obligated by statute to carry 911 calls regardless of whether the originating phone has a paid-for calling plan. This is why.

Iridium can, and does, choose not to carry emergency traffic, for any reason, or for no reason at all.


HF has many drawbacks and many costs. But with properly installed and maintained equipment, and competent technique, you can get emergency comms out from anywhere in the world, usually right away, and always within a 12 hour window. At shorter distances up to a few hundred miles, it is 99%+ reliable with minimal fuss, for talking to whoever.

Last time I posted a poll, the vast majority of cruisers who engage in offshore passagemaking had HF capability.

Now, we've lost Winlink, and WLO, and USCG monitoring of 2182, all of which reduces the utility of HF. And with the completion of the Rescue 21 in the USA and similar VHF projects on the coasts of other countries, including much of Africa, well, VHF does much more than it used to, so HF doesn't matter as much.

Whether it still matters to you depends on where you go, what you do, and how much you trust Iridium.

[Jammer]

Originally Posted by CarlF

As I remember, Rebel Heart's SSB radio failed first.Then the satphone.

The SSB radio was not installed or maintained using best practices. It had not been shown to be functional for distance communications before they left shore. The captain and crew did not have any experience using it, other than test communications to nearby (dozens of miles or less) stations.


I do not believe there is any evidence to suggest that it "failed" at sea. The preponderance of evidence would suggest that it worked at sea exactly as it had in the harbor.

For emergency comm's (especially as a backup to a voice system) - the InReach is hard to beat. Two way communication to SAR. Can go with you in a life raft. 4 day battery.

For clarity, InReach is an Iridium reseller providing text-only terminals and service.

[Jammer]

Originally Posted by PippaB

I had an interesting experience with a VHF [...] the second question was “do you have a cell phone aboard skipper?” The inevitable answer was “yes” followed by “what is your number?” After that the USCG moved the conversation to cell phone

1) VHF coverage extends farther from shore than cell phone coverage, and if you can get a relay from other nearby boats the effective range in an emergency is considerable



2) In my experience USCG will not do this in true life-threatening emergencies

[goboatingnow]

It should be pointed out that the primary destination for rescue calls , under GMDSS is the appropriate shore station , it’s then the responsibility of the shore MRCC to alert vessels in the vicinity which it will do by various means including HF , this is also true for ocean areas as there are designated high seas MRCCs. ( program these numbers into your sat phone )

MRCCs will have access to medical advice and can direct you to specialist advice as required if it’s other types of help

Hence your key safety aim should be to have reliable on board long range comms that can reach a MRCC

Hence why a sat phone is useful , as is iridium Go etc. these days in shore over 90% of distress calls are received via mobile phone !

Other then the “ hobby “ element there’s is very little to gain from HF these days. ( and I’m a amateur radio operator !)

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by CarlF

As I remember, Rebel Heart's SSB radio failed first.Then the satphone...

I believe that all their comm’s failed, more or less, simultaneously.

Originally Posted by Charlotte Kaufman (Rebel Heart’)

”A week into our crossing, however, our youngest daughter got sick. After several days, when she was getting worse instead of better, our onshore doctor advised us to begin antibiotics. We started her on the medication but she was not responding. Then each of the redundancies we carried aboard for onshore communication, including VHF and SSB radios and our satellite phone, failed. The Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB) was our last method of communicating with land, and as the name indicates, was only to be used for emergencies. This was an emergency."

➥ https://www.huffpost.com/entry/rebel...b0e346ce7d123e

Originally Posted by Jammer

The SSB radio was not installed or maintained using best practices. It had not been shown to be functional for distance communications before they left shore. The captain and crew did not have any experience using it, other than test communications to nearby (dozens of miles or less) stations.
I do not believe there is any evidence to suggest that it "failed" at sea. The preponderance of evidence would suggest that it worked at sea exactly as it had in the harbor.

Indeed.

[Messing About]

Thanks for posting a link to the Rebel Heart story. In a case like that, seems a shame to have to scuttle the boat when it was perfectly viable to continue. But I imagine the husband single handing it with no comms wasn’t a great idea. But I’m curious, as a future single hander. . . Could they force him to get off the vessel or could he have refused and taken it in his hands to bring her home?

[sv_pelagia]

We use our HF SSB for checking into HAM nets. Let's us keep track of who is where. We also use system with pactor to send emails (Winlink certainly works for us!), download weather, etc. (We have many places here in British Columbia where VHF weather reception is terrible-to-nil.)

This year we have a Zoleo satellite communicator. Good for quick short emails and texts, but not very useful for weather. Also, being 1-to-1 comms, it doesn't give us insight into the larger picture of where boats are that the HAM nets provide.

Definitely wouldn't want to be without our HF SSB.

[rslifkin]

Originally Posted by alctel

Fundamentally (and this is why I don't understand people saying 'a satphone is better!) - it's a different system to a sat phone. A sat phone is point to point, while a radio is point to many - and there isn't any sat-based gear that replicates that. Whether or not that is important is up to you. I found it useful to ask on the nets the current state of anchorages etc, or ask for advice (I also have an inreach I use to text people with - having a mix of systems for redundancy helps me sleep better.)

At the start of covid, I was trapped in an anchorage in Mexico outside of cell range with around 9 other boats, and it was helpful checking into the SSB net every morning to see what was happening in the other anchorages and the cities - the other boat with SSB and I then relayed to the rest of the anchorage. This was back when no-one was sure if it was going to wipe out the human race or whatever and the rules/regulations were changing daily (if not hourly) so it was extremely handy.

It's also nice not having to rely on a commercial company with sim cards etc. It just works.

Agreed. SSB and VHF serve a slightly different purpose. They're useful when you either have no pre-arranged contact info for whomever you want to talk to (such as a boat you can read the name on, but know nothing else) or for when you don't know who you want to talk to. Or to talk to multiple people.

When you know what you want to look up or who you want to contact (and have contact info), then it's cell phone / satcom time.

That said, if you have satcom of some form and aren't in situations where SSB would hold an advantage over satcom, I wouldn't worry much about having SSB. But for those saying VHF can be ditched too, I think those people are crazy. The VHF gets used for things a cell phone can't be on a regular basis.

[hjohnson]

Originally Posted by Fore and Aft

Fxykty I feel that way about my VHF. For coastal cruising my phone does everything we need. I can't even remember last time we used the VHF.
Cruising with friends, it seems we all just text each other.
Cheers

I guess this really depends on where you are. I’m homeported in Burrard Inlet, Vancouver. The VHF is an absolutely indispensable safety tool. From the moment we’re aboard and preparing for departure, we have it on 12 (local VTS) so that we can get a mental picture of ship movements in the harbour. This is a supplement to our AIS. When our sailing in the bay, if I don’t know what a Deep Sea is doing, You had better believe I’m going to call them to figure it out (are they heading to the anchorage, or to the narrows? Let’s find out.).

Also, around here, you need to monitor it as traffic will call “Clear Narrows” for oil tankers and the largest cruise ships. In these conditions, all vessels down to the smallest runabout are prohibited from that section of water. Only way you’re going to know about it is by monitoring 12 and 16.

[Paul Elliott]

In most of this discussion the emphasis has been on "Of what use is SSB/VHF/Satphone to me?", and understandably so. Most boaters will never be in a position where they will be needed to provide assistance, and that's a good thing.

But when I'm on the water I want to be able to help when duty calls. And I do think it is our duty to provide assistance to other mariners, and that's why I have and use multiple communications tools as appropriate to the situation.

It can be as simple and non-threatening as the time we heard a VHF call from a sailor who had run out of fuel on the San Francisco bay. We were practically next door so we sailed over and gave him our spare 5-gallon jerry can of diesel (this was before the price of diesel was entirely ridiculous, but the fuel was still worth more than the container). He offered to pay, but we told him to "pass it forward". He could have just dropped anchor and called SeaTow, but I feel good about the way we handled it.

So, back to the original question, If I am blue-water sailing then VHF and a satphone would be my minimum. Satphone has more general utility (to me) than a SSB. Before I had a satphone my setup was VHF and SSB. Now I have all three, but once you amortize the cost of the SSB then it's less expensive than the ongoing satphone service.

We have had many discussions here comparing the relative cost and utility of SSB and satphone, but I don't know if these have been recently updated to reflect the current available technology and services. There are *many* options.