SSB Radio

[beneteau_305_553]

Brendan

One keel bolt had a zinc plated plate approx 70 mm square and 5 mm thick with,a nut, M8 I think, welded on edge to it. I think this is standard on Beneteaus. I didn't have large enough spade terminals to fit this so I twisted a loop in the cable and soldered it together. This cable was then bolted through this eye with a stainless steel bolt and large flat washers both sides.

The annodes have corroded but the keel hasn't.

I used more 6 mm2 cable terminated as above to link from the keel terminal to the bolt that fixed the annodes through the hull. I used long bolts through the hull so that the first nut held the annode to the hull and then the terminal was removable without loosening the annode.

The earth terminal on the atu was also taken to the same point.

I did get interference from the hand held vhf when on charge and also from the nicad charger I used for torch batteries etc and also from the 12 v dc to 220 v ac inverter that I used for powering the lap top. All these chargers seem to create interference so I turn them off when trying to transmit long distances.

Hope this helps

Richard

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[MainlySteam]

<<<ICOM M802 has both SSB and Ham frequencies available, it may be necessary to have a dealer 'enable' the ham frequencies.>>>

The cloning of the M802 has changed a little since it first came out (outside the EU) early in the second half of 2002 so the following may not be exactly correct for whatever one gets off the shelf now. Also, with the EU's parochial requirements for radios, the EU sets may not have any of the following competence at all!

The last set I set up could not, on delivery, be programmed or tuned to anything other than the preprogrammed marine frequencies. However, upon a once off powering the radio up with a combination of front face keys pushed in by the user (the dealer did not have to do it), the radio was then recloned to tune continually across the whole of the MF and HF frequency spectrum, any frequency of which could also be programmed into the memories as well. The radio is also then able to also be manually tuned throughout that range with the Tx and Rx frequencies individually tunable - so for amateur operation one can mange split frequency contacts quite easily.

The set has 160 user channels for ones own use eg for programming amateur, broadcast or whatever, plus a dedicated bank of email channels as well. On the last set I did, the email frequencies had to be programmed by the dealer according to those for the email service provider one used (actually came preprogrammed with Sailmail and another I think it had).

Kind regards

John



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[MainlySteam]

The water tanks need to be hard up against the hull for quite a large area to get useful coupling to the sea for grounding purposes. In themselves they will also provide some sort of counterpoise even if not close to the seawater. However, the best approach is to also incorporate some of the approaches that have been discussed if one wants a good performing system.

John

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[MainlySteam]

Richard

With your chargers you may find that if you get some clip on ferrites, the split cubic ones with a hole through the middle which clip together over a wire (I am not familiar with your suppliers but the likes of Radio Shack, RS, etc will stock them), big enough to get 3 or 4 turns of the charger lead wires through that normally clears the problem pretty much up. I have also found that some chargers are suppressed on one side but not the other (usually the output side). Wind the charger lead through the ferrite the 3 or 4 times and clip the ferrite block together - do that on both sides of the charger, as close to it as possible if it is of the type that has a cable on both sides (as the DC input ones normally do) or just on the output side if the charger block plugs directly into a bulkhead socket.

The higher current voltage converters for powering the modern approx 18 volt laptops, while normally suppressed still can be quite noisy. The above tends to work on them too.

John

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[Robin]

John

Do you know if this can also be done on the older Icoms? We have a M700 marine set.

Robin

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[ranga]

John, I recently put an MC-802 on my yacht and am still learning about it. Do you have any suggestions with regards the squelch. I would like to keep the radio on a listening watch all the time but no matter what squelch value I set the radio to, I get squelch intermittently coming through that is too annoying for me to keep the radio on.

Any help would be appreciated.

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[MainlySteam]

Robin

The only one that I know of which has similar functionality is the M700-PRO which I understand that if you turn it on holding some keys in gives you VFO control. I am not sure if yours is the PRO. However, I think that you have to do so everytime you turn it on rather than it being just a one time setup action as on the M802. I have not used one so could not comment further on that and I do not know the key combination. Once implemented, I assume it operates the same as the 802 where there is a cursor under the frequency readout when you want VFO control (by pushing a key) and the Group knob moves the cursor under any digit of the frequncy you choose and then rotating the Channel knob steps the frequency as you rotate it at that rate. For example, if you place the cursor under the 100Hz digit with the Group knob the Channel knob operates as a 100hz step VFO. If under the units Mhz digit it steps in units Mhz, under the 10's Mhz digit in 10 Mhz, etc, all just as the tuning rate adjustment on many amateur tranceivers steps the tuning rate.

All the Icom radios that are capable of being controlled by a computer, can be remotely tuned by a computer with suitable software - on the 700-PRO and the M710 I think that is normally via the NMEA port. I don't know if that is so with the M700 but for the M700-PRO <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.cssincorp.com/mrc/Default.htm>http://www.cssincorp.com/mrc/Default.htm</A> do software.

Again, if your radio was bought in the EU, you may find its functionality crippled or restricted compared to the international sets but for ssb sets I could not comment further on that.

John

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[MainlySteam]

Hi Craig

I have not really tried the squelch much on the M802, that because squelch does not work very well on other ssb radios (both marine and otherwise) that I have used. At the risk of telling you something you know already, that is because of the background noise you normally have, unlike on VHF FM which has little background noise, the squelch level has to be set so high that it is only useful for very strong signals. Otherwise every static crash or interference opens the squelch which, in my view, is worse than just having the radio unmuted all the time.

On the 802 I seem to recall that it was not too bad (possibly because of the DSP) and perhaps I should explore it more on mine. I do remember that it suffered the same problems as outlined above though.

Maybe you can answer something for me - have you connected an antenna for the DSC watch receiver yet and if so what did you use?

John

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[ranga]

John,

Thanks for your response. I have not yet pursued the DSC side of things and so haven't connected an antenna for DSC. This is my first SSB radio and I only had it fitted a few months ago so that I could at least receive weather forecasts when sailing around the Australian coast from Perth to Adelaide. I do intend to exploit its features further over the coming months, and might even pluck up the courage to call someone up!

Ironically, I should have fitted one in the UK last year before sailing halfway round the world. It was pretty quiet on the VHF in the Southern Ocean.

Craig





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[Robin]

Many thanks John I will do some more hunting to see exactly what version we do have, it came with our boat. So far I have just used it for receiving Weather fax & RTTY and haven't used the TX although I do have the marine MF/HF licence.

Robin

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[MainlySteam]

Robin

Why I did not think to do this before I do not know as I frequently refer to this site. Icom USA (and Icom Japan too) have pdf copies of many manuals on their internet sites. Just had a quick look at Icom USA and the 700PRO manual is there at <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.icomamerica.com/downloads/manuals.html>http://www.icomamerica.com/downloads/manuals.html</A> - you may, of course already have a manual. Had a look in that and it describes (page 5 onwards) the VFO mode. It is in fact quite different and not nearly as flexible as the M802. Whether the ones in the UK are cloned the same I do not know.

John

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[Robin]

Thanks again John I'll go hunting! We did inherit a rather tatty photocopied manual but I don't recall seeing that section I'll check again next time I go on board.

Robin

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[BrendanChandler]

Re: SSB Radio - positioning the \'box\'

It seems a great idea to have the users unit separate from the guts of the machine that way the nav table is not cluttered with the black box.

What is the best location for the black box?
Should it be in a locker near the battery and the ATU so that the length of high power cable is minimised.
Should it be near the chart table so that a PC can be connected easily or should one run the comms cables from the locker to the chart table?

Brendan

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[GAJ]

I've fitted an SSB to my First 405 this year, which is probably about the same vintage as your Idyll and can recommend reading the manual that is available for the American SGS Autotuner. The document is available to download on the website and is full of easy to understand and practical info. The theory applies to all HF installations.

The larger the ground plane the better, steel boats are best after that you've just got to do your best.

I've got one bronze ground plate plus copper strip to stantions/lifelines and steel tanks, to get the copper through to the keel was more than I could face this year! Don't buy copper strip from any of the marine electronic suppliers as they charge the earth. I found a transformer manufacturer near here who sold me 150mm wide strip it at £6.00 per kilo, it can be cut easily with scissors and a couple of kilos goes a long way.

Happy sailing





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[MainlySteam]

SGC also do quite a good introductory booklet on SSB installations - better than the Icom one in my opinion. It can be found at <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.sgcworld.com/publications/SGChug.html>http://www.sgcworld.com/publications/SGChug.html</A>.

As GAJ says, the SGC manuals are also good and they, plus quite alot of other information can be found on the same site as above (the Mobile at 500 Watt or similarly named booklet is also good).

John

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