RobbieW
Well-known member
Agreed, though achieving the advance licence is no sinecure in the UK. At that level its assumed that your going to build your own station so the theory and exam are heavy on technical and electronic stuff
Where do I start learning about HF/SSB?
- Thread starter Kukri
- Start date
Agreed, though achieving the advance licence is no sinecure in the UK. At that level its assumed that your going to build your own station so the theory and exam are heavy on technical and electronic stuff
Roberto
Well-known member
I would suggest to begin by buying a cheap receiver radio like the Degen1103/Kaito, or Sony Sangean... equivalent, playing with some pieces of wire as antennas, until you can decode weatherfax or rtty transmissions with your computer, etc; transmission is a rather substantial leap forward, it's often better to capitalise some sort of basic understanding before making it. Agree with all others have said about the amateur licence, possibly one of the best things to have if you plan a longish trip. BTW I usually have one or two satphones as well.
In the remote chance you can read Italian, may I suggest this step by step guide to long range comms, by yours truly
In the remote chance you can read Italian, may I suggest this step by step guide to long range comms, by yours truly
GHA
Well-known member
Or use someone else's radio to get going...
http://websdr.org/
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wolphi.droidrtty&hl=en
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wolphi.wefax
Frank Holden
Well-known member
Query?
With UK amateur licences what frequencies can you use with the various levels of ticket?
In Australia an 'F' call lets you use frequencies up to the 40 metre band ( 7 megs..) which is a good start in the world of HF...
Frank
VK3JFH/VP8DNM
With UK amateur licences what frequencies can you use with the various levels of ticket?
In Australia an 'F' call lets you use frequencies up to the 40 metre band ( 7 megs..) which is a good start in the world of HF...
Frank
VK3JFH/VP8DNM
maby
Well-known member
The primary difference between the three levels of licence is the power output permitted and the locations from which you can operate. The most basic level of licence is the Foundation Licence - which permits operation in all modes on all standard HF and VHF bands with an output power limit of 10w. I believe that it does not permit operation on some of the more "experimental" bands - LF and some microwave - but it is a while since I looked seriously at the licence. It also does not permit Maritime Mobile operation - I'm not sure about car mobile. I don't think you are permitted to operate through satellites either. The Foundation Licence is not recognised by most foreign administrations and does not qualify for reciprocal licence access while abroad.
The Intermediate Licence permits a higher power output and may lift some of the restrictions on using the "experimental" bands. I'm not sure about the position in respect to things like satellites, maritime mobile and reciprocal licencing use. The Full Licence gives access to everything. We used to have Class A and Class B Full licences - class As had passed the morse test and could use the HF bands, class Bs had not passed the test and were limited to VHF and above. The morse test was cancelled here quite a few years ago and we are all Full Licence holders.
GHA
Well-known member
KellysEye
Active member
>Spending a winter with your local amateur radio club is the fast track way of getting skilled
People keep saying that but you need a marine licence and a marine boat licence to operate the SSB. What you will find is that marine and amateurs use different frequnencies. Marine frequencies are used to keep in touch with other boats on long passages, in marinas, at anchor and one to one.
People keep saying that but you need a marine licence and a marine boat licence to operate the SSB. What you will find is that marine and amateurs use different frequnencies. Marine frequencies are used to keep in touch with other boats on long passages, in marinas, at anchor and one to one.
GHA
Well-known member
Ham is very common onboard and though technically against the rules will cover marine SSB bands as well. Marine SSB is not use for close contact, that's what VHF is for.
Will you ever stop using that prehistoric ">" for quoting? That went out with the cavemen for good reason.
maby
Well-known member
The point that I was making - and others like me - is that getting a marine licence and kitting the boat out with a working, legal, marine HF rig is an expensive process and the results are likely to disappoint many people. HF SSB is very different to marine VHF - it's unpredictable and unreliable. The OP clearly does not know much about it - he's admitted so here - he was posting to ask how he could learn more before getting his licence and re-equipping the boat. Taking the training course for an amateur radio Foundation Licence and subsequently buying a second-hand transceiver on eBay will be much cheaper than going through the marine licence path and will give him the opportunity to understand the limitations and capabilities of HF SSB - those are pretty much identical for both the amateur and marine applications.
We are at a sunspot low at the moment and the HF bands are not working very well at all. Better to learn free of charge from your local amateur radio club and pay a couple of hundred quid on eBay for a middle-aged HF transceiver, then spend a couple of months playing with it connected up to a bit of wire running down your garden to understand how it works and what it is capable of. The alternative going straight down the marine path will be several hundred pounds on training and taking the exam to get the licence, followed by several hundred more pounds for a marine transceiver. HF SSB is a lot more complex to set up than VHF - the training course to get the marine HF licence will not teach you enough to reliably install, configure and tune up a marine installation. If the OP does the Foundation Licence course at a local club, they will teach him everything he needs to know to install and commission the equipment on his boat if he chooses to proceed. It really is a low cost, low risk route into marine HF - even accepting the fact that he will still need to do the exams to get the marine licence if he decides that it is worth the effort and expense.
Frank Holden
Well-known member
Thanks Maby and GHA..... although I can't see where it says you can't operate MM...
10W? you can do an awful lot with 10W....
10W? you can do an awful lot with 10W....
GHA
Well-known member
2(1) A.
(Control & "F",
)With WSPR I once got picked up in Aus from the UK on under 10W
http://wsprnet.org/drupal/
duncan99210
Well-known member
I’m not a great fan of HF radio as a means of communication. I spent far too much time passing information over logistic radio nets using morse because it was the only way to communicate: the frequencies allocated were almost always too noisy for voice working. Whilst that was often down to an inability to choose our own frequencies it was nevertheless a bloody awful way to communicate over significant distances. That was in the days before good trunk communications and satellites.
I understand the attraction of HF SSB as an all informed method of networking over long distances and also that there are some people who enjoy the challenge of making it work. However, there are much easier and more reliable ways of communicating using satellites. Cheaper to buy the equipment, easy to use and, above all, reliable. HF is free to use once installed but that in itself is a significant cost, plus the cost of obtaining the LRC. Balance that against the lower purchase price of satellite comms plus the running costs and I’d suggest it would be a relatively close run set of sums.
I understand the attraction of HF SSB as an all informed method of networking over long distances and also that there are some people who enjoy the challenge of making it work. However, there are much easier and more reliable ways of communicating using satellites. Cheaper to buy the equipment, easy to use and, above all, reliable. HF is free to use once installed but that in itself is a significant cost, plus the cost of obtaining the LRC. Balance that against the lower purchase price of satellite comms plus the running costs and I’d suggest it would be a relatively close run set of sums.
PhilipH
Member
There is a lot of negativity about SSB here but over the last nine years we have had a great deal of success with voice nets, email and weather. The propagation issue is overstated- this last winter there were some days when propagation was not good for our Caribbean net but by operating on one frequency for a period and then switching to another at a defined time, plus people acting as relays, pretty much everyone who wanted to join in could be picked up. I should say we have an Iridium satphone too as in some parts of the world SSB for email can be difficult and the satphone is great for weather forecasts etc. We have not used Iridium GO so cannot comment. As far as a licence is concerned I have not found having just the marine licence a problem. I am told that if you want to get a HAM licence it us much easier in the USA and does not require building a station. Hope this helps.
Skylark
Well-known member
I’ve been reading this thread with great interest, it’s very informative. I’ve had an Amateur Licence A since the early 1980s. I’d like to do the marine HF radio course but I can only find one UK provider and it seems expensive so I haven’t yet got as far as making a booking. Marine HF radio gear also seems very expensive, compared to amateur.
Regarding power, I have 2 transceivers, a 10W Trio (Kenwood) TS120V and a 100W TS830S. There’s very little between them most of the time. At home I use a horizontal, 3 element directional and rotatable aerial and this is key to successful communication. It has very significant gain over a long wire (backstay) so I can hence imagine the challenges associated with a maritime installation.
Regarding power, I have 2 transceivers, a 10W Trio (Kenwood) TS120V and a 100W TS830S. There’s very little between them most of the time. At home I use a horizontal, 3 element directional and rotatable aerial and this is key to successful communication. It has very significant gain over a long wire (backstay) so I can hence imagine the challenges associated with a maritime installation.
maby
Well-known member
That's a decent beam, but I bet your garden is not a patch on the open sea as a ground plane!
Gryphon2
Member
Unless you have plenty of cash I think I would not bother with HF/ssb. On our circumnavigation we used one for weather updates and chatting to other yachties on passage but it works out expensive and not always reliable. We used a sat phone for grib files and for chatting to our family and at a $ a minute seemed reasonable and next time we go we will only use this.
GHA
Well-known member
Not sure the $ argument works, when I ditched the sat phone it was £30 a month just for line rental, so a year without even making a call would be well on the way to a second hand Ham set, still need and antenna and tuner but then free to run as long as you want.
Sat/Ham are completely different animals though, you can't really compare them.
I remember quite few frustrating days trying to get a sat signal long enough to get a grib offshore as well.
Achosenman
Active member
+1 on that. 20 years using HF in aviation on longhaul routes. 20 years trying to find a frequency that worked or one that the voice comms were intelligible. Then joy of joys, the B787 came along...sat comms with CPDLC. Suddenly all was clear.
KellysEye
Active member
>On our circumnavigation we used one for weather updates and chatting to other yachties on passage but it works out expensive and not always reliable.
Once you have paid for the SSB, ours had a tuner and aerial with insulators there are no extra costs, ours came with a boat that had an SSB fitted by the previous owner in total it had been used for over 20,000nms with no problems.
Once you have paid for the SSB, ours had a tuner and aerial with insulators there are no extra costs, ours came with a boat that had an SSB fitted by the previous owner in total it had been used for over 20,000nms with no problems.
