SSB or SatPhone

[PHN]

When you are in the middle of the Atlantic, Pacific or any other remote location the SSB radio - in the old days - used to be the only form of communication available. Today the world has changed and we also have SatPhone and various other forms of satellite communication.

Because SSB radio's require additional licensing and installation of costly and sensitive equipment I wondered if today we still need it when circumnavigating the world.

Indeed ... we do need an SSB receiver for weather and other information. Only receiving can be done using a simpler setup. However do we still need an SSB transmitter or would e.g. an Iridium SatPhone do just as well ... or even better?

 

[Kukri]

I have been going over this issue.

The thread that I started on it is here:

http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?505170-Where-do-I-start-learning-about-HF-SSB

I came down in favour of SSB.

My boat once had an SSB installation so she has the ground plates, insulated backstay and indeed a whip aerial, and one of my sons is a merchant navy officer so he has the bit of paper, leaving me to get mine. But after that the first cost was about the same. The running cost of a sat phone is much higher.

As Frank Holden pointed out to me once one has got as far as SSB it is only one more step to “ham”.

 

[prv]

No personal experience, but I think they do different things. If your goal is to communicate with specific, mostly shorebased, people and organisations then a satphone will do it most efficiently. If you want to communicate with non-specific professional maritime stations then you need marine MF/HF, and probably DSC since I doubt ships are listening for voices on calling channels any more (they're required to carry the radios, but do all their actual business over satellite email). If you want to chat with non-specific other yachties then I believe some nets are on marine HF but most are on Ham frequencies, so you'd need to go that route instead.

All three will let you do the basics of reporting your position and communicating distress.

Pete

 

[capnsensible]

Absolutely no problem with declaring Satphone or similar device hands down winner!

Have watched a number of people struggle for hours with SSB......including Service Skippers on Nic 55's, sorry Minn!

Set up, licensing and general messing about for indifferent results seems a waste to me.

Have used Iridium Go a lot, several Transats, across the Carib and across the Pacific. Occasional gaps but never for very long.

Last trip Canaries to West Panama, for economy, used a Garmin Inreach. Texting, forecasts, emergency button, got the lot and comparatively cheap.

SSB is soo last century! :encouragement:

 

[john_q]

I had a friend who has an Iridium Go who was 4 days out of Bermuda heading for the Azores when he came across an abandoned yacht. I an in Guatemala, he called me on the Go but the quality of the call was very bad, he was down below Hoved To as it was blowing (I do not know if his external aerial was ok) so I asked him to text me the detail of the vessel and the position which worked great,

I contacted Bermuda Search and Recue by email and had a very quick response and it turned out the boat had already been abandoned and the crew recovered and I was able to text back the information to my friend

The moral of the story check your voice transmissions before you depart regardless of whether you are using SSB ot a Sat phone

PS
I already have an SSB and like it. I would like a Go as it works seamlessly with Predictwind and when you look at the price of a Pactor modem .....

 

[davethedog]

We have an iridium go, and yes the monthly cost for the sim card is more than ssb, but you can do so so much more, such as sms to anyone, email, and voice calls (in and out) as well as vessel tracking and linking it to predict wind. In fact to fit an ssb costs a lot whereas the iridium go is about £1000 for the marine kit and then we are paying approx 150 a month for the unlimited data and 150 mins talk time per month. Once we are in the canaries we will reduce to the most basic package.

Horses for courses.. But technology has moved on.

 

[Heckler]

We have an iridium go, and yes the monthly cost for the sim card is more than ssb, but you can do so so much more, such as sms to anyone, email, and voice calls (in and out) as well as vessel tracking and linking it to predict wind. In fact to fit an ssb costs a lot whereas the iridium go is about £1000 for the marine kit and then we are paying approx 150 a month for the unlimited data and 150 mins talk time per month. Once we are in the canaries we will reduce to the most basic package.

Horses for courses.. But technology has moved on.

We have a Delorme, now Garmin, Inreach. Emails, emergency button, track dropper, cost me £100 6 years ago and 60 dollars for two months when we went south, Switch the contract on when needed.

 

[Tintin]

It seems to me that the cost of setup, complexity, problems that can occur with the installation etc outweigh the higher ongoing running costs of a satphone by a long way.

I'm quite attracted to the Inreach at the moment, especially as the portability means I can use it for extended arctic treks and mountaineering too.

Thoughts?

 

[duncan99210]

Looked long and hard at this before doing a transat a couple of years back.

Bottom line is that the costs of getting the Long Range Certificate, installing an SSB on the boat, then fitting a Pactor modem and so on made it too expensive.
In addition to that, I spent a few years as the Signals Officer of a transport regiment. We used HF radio of our long distance comms; it worked but it was somewhat unreliable.... Nothing to do with the kit, everything to do with snap, crackle and pop as a background to whatever was being said. Indeed, we did much of our work by morse as it was the only way to get through.
Compare that to sending messages via an Inreach or Iridium GO. Simple, easy to to do and set up, using kit that you are already familiar with. The kit isn’t too expensive, air time is reasonable and is on switch on/switch off contracts so you 9nly buy what you need.
I agree that SSB is good for yachtie nets but I’ve yet to be convinced of their value versus the cost of the kit and training.

 

[KellysEye]

SSB is the lifeblood of long distance sailing. Cruiser nets on long passages, bays, marinas and weather, also you can use it to keep in touch with boats you know. We did have a satphone and kept it charged but never used because of the expensive call rate. However emergency calls are free so we kept in the grab bag to use if we had to abandon the boat.

 

[michael_w]

SSB is the lifeblood of long distance sailing. Cruiser nets on long passages, bays, marinas and weather, also you can use it to keep in touch with boats you know. We did have a satphone and kept it charged but never used because of the expensive call rate. However emergency calls are free so we kept in the grab bag to use if we had to abandon the boat.

In an ideal world have both. When I went off on our Atlantic circuits I couldn't afford both systems and so opted for the SSB. Sure it can be a bit frustrating to use when the propogation isn't there. But chatting on passage with other boats and keeping up with our friends more than made up for it as well as downloading wefax and other weather information for free.

Most phone calls can wait until you have wi-fi. Happy Hour beers are a lot cheaper than satphone charges.

 

[SV Kittiwake]

We removed and sold the SSB on the new boat and are going for (probably) an in-reach when the time comes to go offshore. The cost of flying back to the UK to do a course was too much, more expensive than buying the in-reach. And in an emergency I can't imagine dealing with the faff and complexity of the SSB. And should the worst happen then the inreach can come in the liferaft with us. Also uses much less electricity (again a concern if the boat's flooding and the electrics go down). All in all satellite seems more robust and easier to use.

 

[GHA]

When you are in the middle of the Atlantic, Pacific or any other remote location the SSB radio - in the old days - used to be the only form of communication available. Today the world has changed and we also have SatPhone and various other forms of satellite communication.

Because SSB radio's require additional licensing and installation of costly and sensitive equipment I wondered if today we still need it when circumnavigating the world.

Indeed ... we do need an SSB receiver for weather and other information. Only receiving can be done using a simpler setup. However do we still need an SSB transmitter or would e.g. an Iridium SatPhone do just as well ... or even better?

Very different beasts so not a black and white answer...

For a quick ARC then sat phone probably would win, I went from sat phone to Ham as sat was too expensive, not so hard to justify some air time for a crossing but the £30 off monthly line rental was harder, was a while ago so not sure if you can turn on and off sim cards these days. Otherwise it would mean a few days or weeks anchored in a dirty port hoping the overnight delivery of a new sim might actually turn up. Ham was cheaper than marine SSB both for kit & license through a ham radio club, though if you aren't keen and interested then you might struggle with the advanced license needed to broadcast offshore.

From the excellent Fatty Goodlander....

 

[capnsensible]

The number of vessels fitted with SSB is, as far as I can see on my journeys near and far, is rapidly diminishing. Less and less people to talk to anyway...especially on those er, 'cruiser nets'.....not my thang.

With something like Inreach you can nominate some email addresses to follow you for extra safety.

So, along with your semaphore flags, the time is almost done for that technology.

 

[GHA]

The number of vessels fitted with SSB is, as far as I can see on my journeys near and far, is rapidly diminishing. Less and less people to talk to anyway...especially on those er, 'cruiser nets'.....not my thang.

With something like Inreach you can nominate some email addresses to follow you for extra safety.

So, along with your semaphore flags, the time is almost done for that technology.

Never bother with marine SSb but ham is very much alive and well - no sign of that dying out , anyone following Jeanne Socrates will know just how much time she spends chatting on ham & SSb every day, and others have blogged about just how useful Ham can be in many parts of the world making contact with locals before arriving with very useful local info and new friends (or parts) when you get there.

Very different beasts though, like saying radar is dead because of AIS, just not the case.

Edit - ignoring 2 way comms for a moment, would never head across an ocean with at least a receiver for weatherfax

 

[Ohlin Karcher]

I hope the technology isn't going the same way as semaphore..it's fun and interesting.. (disclaimer, Intermediate Ham writing, aiming to do Advanced).

Would you say these types of arguments could be applied to the debate? Such as:
Enthusiasts justify celestial navigation mainly because it is independent of GPS,
A hand bearing compass is independent of radar or AIS for collision avoidance,
A paper chart is independent of electricity and GPS
Slab reefing can't jam half in, half out like roller reefing

I'm sure there are more..but a SSB seems relatively standalone compared to Iridium. Or is it not relevant?

 

[Ohlin Karcher]

Never bother with marine SSb but ham is very much alive and well - no sign of that dying out , anyone following Jeanne Socrates will know just how much time she spends chatting on ham & SSb every day, and others have blogged about just how useful Ham can be in many parts of the world making contact with locals before arriving with very useful local info and new friends (or parts) when you get there.

Very different beasts though, like saying radar is dead because of AIS, just not the case.

Edit - ignoring 2 way comms for a moment, would never head across an ocean with at least a receiver for weatherfax

Yes a standard comms receiver, and an app on a computer or ipad, can get ocean weather at sea, may I digress and ask the simplest way? I have this receiver

 

[GHA]

Yes a standard comms receiver, and an app on a computer or ipad, can get ocean weather at sea, may I digress and ask the simplest way? I have this receiver

I use one of these, not even sure if they are still made but great little receiver if with a clunky control panel >>

Though been a little while since it's been needed, also have a usb Fun Cube Dongle which receives from LW up to GHz straight onto a raspberry pi.

 

[capnsensible]

I hope the technology isn't going the same way as semaphore..it's fun and interesting.. (disclaimer, Intermediate Ham writing, aiming to do Advanced).

Would you say these types of arguments could be applied to the debate? Such as:
Enthusiasts justify celestial navigation mainly because it is independent of GPS,
A hand bearing compass is independent of radar or AIS for collision avoidance,
A paper chart is independent of electricity and GPS
Slab reefing can't jam half in, half out like roller reefing

I'm sure there are more..but a SSB seems relatively standalone compared to Iridium. Or is it not relevant?

Funny innit? Back ups to the electronics including Astro, yup.

Never had a roller problem.

Fan of Iridium. Hey Ho.

Have used modern electronics for weather forecasting but not had a problem in 4 transats on my own boat with virtually no electronics at all!

 

[Ohlin Karcher]

I use one of these, not even sure if they are still made but great little receiver if with a clunky control panel >>

Though been a little while since it's been needed, also have a usb Fun Cube Dongle which receives from LW up to GHz straight onto a raspberry pi.

Thanks I will check out those dongles