Why are ssb radios so big?

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Oscarpop

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We are looking to installing an ssb transceiver over the coming year if we decide to cross the Atlantic.


However the only option seems to be the icom m810

The thing is it is a fairly sizeable unit and we are going to be a little space limited.

What I fail to understand is that if you can cram so much into an iPhone , why is it that the ssb is still so big?
 
Same reason a pocket calculator is a whole lot smaller than a CNC milling machine. they are orders of magnitude apart in terms of content, design, capability and power requirements, as far apart as a roller skate and a range rover. An I phone is a short range communicator that will reach a mile or three with milliwatts output on essentially a single frequency and has a memory chip big enough to allow it to do clever looking things with info it accesses off the Internet. Lose the Internet connection and just how clever Is an iPhone? It can't do much at all.

Anyway, it's not really comparing like with like.

Are there no HF sets with a seperate control head and the works hidden somewhere else?

The antenna tuners a bit of a lump too.

If you want to have a world-girdling self contained multi freq hundred(?) watt comms set it isn't going to come in a matchbox.
 
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Oscarpop said:
We are looking to installing an ssb transceiver over the coming year if we decide to cross the Atlantic.


However the only option seems to be the icom m810

The thing is it is a fairly sizeable unit and we are going to be a little space limited.

What I fail to understand is that if you can cram so much into an iPhone , why is it that the ssb is still so big?
Click to expand...

Power essentially. An SSB transceiver is typically capable of 100 watts RF whilst a mobile will be 500mW or thereabouts. And you cant put the 100w through very tiny connections on a chip because it would fry.

However, there are plenty of SSBs that are the size of car radios.
 
Bosun Higgs said:
Power essentially. An SSB transceiver is typically capable of 100 watts RF whilst a mobile will be 500mW or thereabouts. And you cant put the 100w through very tiny connections on a chip because it would fry.

However, there are plenty of SSBs that are the size of car radios.
Click to expand...

Such as the Icom 706 I recently bought off eBay!!
 
a separate control is useful against theft too, the big box is hidden somewhere and the removeable head is sometimes (like the IC706 one for example) as big a a car radio one and can be easily brought home
the M801 looks a bit bigger though
 
I was thinking of getting a Kenwood unit which was the size of a car radio, can't remember the model, I think it needed some work to get all the marine bands but that was easy to do. Something like this one.

ts-50.jpg
 
Exactly!
If kenwood can make a unit the size of a marine VHF that sports 200w of power output, why are the marine ssb units so clunky?
 
I have the Icom IC-718. It is a bit larger but very good audio quality and interference supression.
I took my amateur radio exams at the local radio club whick were not expensive or difficult and now have a full licence so can use at sea and send and recieve emails over the radio free using the winlink radio network.
Worth a look.
 
tri39 said:
Such as the Icom 706 I recently bought off eBay!!
Click to expand...

I have been extremely happy with a 706 also. Less output than a dedicated marine band SSB but never an issue. Small (but quite heavy) and with more features than its bigger brothers. Although not marinised mine has crossed the Atlantic and more several times over 9 years in a smallish boat.
 
Oscarpop said:
Perfect.

So can it , or can it be modified to recieve marine ssb?

It's small and cost £700.

Can someone point out the downsides of this unit please ?

Genuine question btw, not sarcasm
Click to expand...

Yaesu are top-quality radios. They sell marine radios as Standard Horizon.
I have the 817, the little brother of the 857, for my grab bag. It can transmit up to 5w from internal batteries. Hopefully enough to get an SOS out from the liferaft.
I bought an Icom 718 from ebay for sending emails while sailing.
The 718 tends to be cheaper, and as a base rig rather than a mobile, has a few more knobs to allow more fine control on reception. It is pretty massive though, and weighs around 4kg

Most ham radios can be wide-banded, see mods.dk for example.

I would have preferred to get the 801 for the DSC functionality. It's somewhat reassuring to be sitting in the marina in Brighton and get DSC acknowledgements from Oostende or further afield; but my setup cost me £400 vs £3000. If I get the time, I might do a DSC decoder as a YAPP :-)
 
Standard Horizon Vertex vx 1700-a little hard to source because its open banded and unpopular with the powers that be because they think we will all start chatting to Jumbo jets and Tornado Bombers!

You can source one from the US for about £400 ex tax.
 
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