Satellite and/or ssb

[sailor4life7777]

Hey guys, if you have sat phone or ssb or both what has been your experience? In the future would you change your current setup? For those of you with both, which one would you give up if you had to. Which one do you currently prefer? How often does your ssb break down?

I know this topic has come up in the past but just wanted to get current thoughts thanks in advance for any input!

[goboatingnow]

Satphone. Much more versatile

[dougweibel]

I have an Iridium Go and a SSB. SSB came with the boat. I have used the SSB a little bit (receiving Chris Parker broadcasts, no transmissions). I use PredictWind and email with the Iridium Go plus a little bit of voice calling and texting. If you don't have SSB experience (which I mostly don't) then you will probably find satellite much easier to use.

My observation is that people who have been using SSB for a long time and have already invested the time to get up the learning curve prefer SSB. SSB does have a social dimension that Sat phones/Iridium do not with the radio nets. People who are not experienced SSB users generally prefer satellite as it is easy to use. You pay ongoing subsciption fees for Satellite but the upfront costs are less, unless you buy a boat that already has SSB. You can turn satellite subscriptions on and off. We turn ours on for periods where we will be doing bluewater passages or in areas with poor cell coverage, and off the rest of the time.

I would give up my SSB without much fuss, but would not give up the Iridium.

[ThereAndBack]

Sat communications 100%

Even if you don't want the Iridium Go! the Garmin InReach products have very cheap plans and can get you weather information and allow unlimited texting. Plus they are a nice backup to the EPIRB.

[Marathon1150]

We have an IridiumGo, an SSB and a Garmin InReach.

We use the IridiumGo more than either of the other two. The InReach is primarily a back up device and though it is kept charged we rarely use it. The SSB is great for weather and other nets and I would not like to give it up. But the IridiumGo is the workhorse that we use for communication via SailNet, and weather via PredictWind.

But, in the Sea of Cortez the SSB was our best source of weather information because of a net (Sonrisa Net) that at the time, had a very experienced weather provider. He was on the air every morning at 8 and must have started pulling together his forecast and synopsis several hours earlier. His forecasts were usually the most accurate and super helpful.

Crossing to French Polynesia from Mexico we used the IridiumGo to keep in touch with a weather router (Bob McDavitt) and PredictWind. We also participated in some SSB nets but not normally for weather.

[Snore]

As a delivery guy I have both.

I use the GO to get weather and emails. Predict Wind PRO is the absolute best and continues to become more robust. Luck Grib is dramatically less and has many of the same features. Luck Grib is missing the high-end forecasts I want when I deliver other people’s boats.

The role of the inReach is tracking (better user interface for customers) and to text-chat with Mrs Snore. The inReach text response is almost at cell phone speed.

Shortly someone will extol the greatness of inReach’s weather. I have had 2 very bad experiences with it and do NOT consider I worthy of me or your boat. It is one of the reasons I invested in the GO and PredictWind PRO.


The GO/inReach set-up with a masthead GO antenna is the best set-up.

[akopac]

I’ve never had anything but vhf and ssb. The reliability of winlink and saildocs is awesome for gribs, wf, and satellite weather. SSB nets are cool

[Scott Berg]

This isn't an "either/or" question. VHF (FM) and HF (SSB) Radio's are an important communication tool Both come with DSC. On HF the DSC will send an emergency message to every ship from line of sight to hundreds of NM away and ring an alarm on the bridge. While ships rarely monitor HF voice comms they all monitor HF/DSC as part fo required GMDSS. While we have both a Sat Phone and Iridium/Go we always have an HF radio also. Everything else requires someone else in the loop and way too much consumer grade infrastructure. Learning to use an HF radio takes a bit more effort than learning to use a VHF one but it's well worth the effort. Just as the Navy is teaching celestial again, the Army and Navy both are improving their HF radio equipment as it's both point to point and one to many communication that doesn't rely on satellites. Strong vote for both. And a used Icom M802 and tuner can be had for under $1500 these days...

[mikereed100]

We have both an Iridium GO and HF radio. The GO is our workhorse for weather and communicating with family under way. The HF radio gets less and less use as fewer people have them and the nets dry up. I think that outdated and draconian licensing requirements will mean even fewer hams in the future, with more people simply opting for SSB. (If anyone from ARRL is listening, you don't need to be an electrical engineer to operate a radio effectively ). However, there have been times when we lost our Iridium signal for days at a time and it was nice to have the option of using the HF radio. Belt and suspenders and all that.

[CassidyNZ]

We have an Icom SSB that hasn’t been turned on for several years. We also have Iridium Go! and an Iridium satphone. The SIM card for one is usable in the other, the only difference being the rate for service. Using it in the phone is more costly than in the Go!

The phone is only there for if the Iridium Go! doesn’t.

To be fair, for the budget-strapped sailor, the SSB is free once the installation is paid for whereas the Iridium service costs about $140 a month. Some service providers allow you to suspend your contract but keep it alive for $5 a month which is great for us doing passages to the islands (need Iridium) then 6 months in the islands (don’t need Iridium).

But as another post has said, global use of SSB is diminishing with each passing year. AFAIK our SSB no longer transmits and to be honest I wouldn’t bother getting it fixed even if it was for free.

[sv_pelagia]

Originally Posted by Marathon1150

But, in the Sea of Cortez the SSB was our best source of weather information because of a net (Sonrisa Net) that at the time, had a very experienced weather provider. He was on the air every morning at 8 and must have started pulling together his forecast and synopsis several hours earlier. His forecasts were usually the most accurate and super helpful.

Unfortunately, Geary, who provided the excellent weather forecasts for the west coast of Mexico on the Sonrisa net, passed away in May, 2019. A true loss.

We used marine and HAM SSB extensively on the way to and in Mexico. For weather, nets, etc. Back home here in British Columbia, we regularly check into two HAM nets, and use SSB to download weather and send/receive email while out of cell coverage.

We've considered the satellite options (eg InReach or Iridium) but other than being simpler and faster, we do not see enough added value over marine/ham SSB to pay the extra price. Likely would add if we to go offshore again.

[Marathon1150]

Originally Posted by dougweibel

I have an Iridium Go and a SSB. SSB came with the boat. I have used the SSB a little bit (receiving Chris Parker broadcasts, no transmissions). I use PredictWind and email with the Iridium Go plus a little bit of voice calling and texting. If you don't have SSB experience (which I mostly don't) then you will probably find satellite much easier to use.

My observation is that people who have been using SSB for a long time and have already invested the time to get up the learning curve prefer SSB. SSB does have a social dimension that Sat phones/Iridium do not with the radio nets. People who are not experienced SSB users generally prefer satellite as it is easy to use. You pay ongoing subsciption fees for Satellite but the upfront costs are less, unless you buy a boat that already has SSB. You can turn satellite subscriptions on and off. We turn ours on for periods where we will be doing bluewater passages or in areas with poor cell coverage, and off the rest of the time.

I would give up my SSB without much fuss, but would not give up the Iridium.

I agree with all of this. I purchased and installed the SSB and have a HAM license. It was a huge amount of work and $$$. Sometimes it is nice, as noted above, to interact with nets. Sometimes it is important. In the Sea of Cortez, Sonrisa net weather info every morning via a HAM channel was generally more accurate on a local scale than PredictWind. Crossing the Pacific, we used PredictWind, GRIB files and a weather router who connected through email, all through the IridiumGo. So we like both but use the IridiumGo more frequently.

But if I could only have one, it would be the IridiumGo.