We are in the early stages of planning a trip across the Pacific in 2019 and I think I ought to install an SSB radio in addition to the satellite phone we currently have on board. Our sailing tends to be very unsophisticated in terms of electronics: in many ways I would almost rather turn the whole lot off and get on with the real task in hand…

The boat is currently in Croatia and we are planning to winter this year in Sicily and I was going to get the yard to install it. If at all possible, I want to avoid putting any more holes in the hull. We currently have rod rigging (which is quite old) and a split backstay, but shows no sign of wear and so I am reluctant to replace it. We are just replacing the batteries on board and that will give us something like 500Ah and an alternator that throws out 130A – so that ought to be plenty of power.

I have heard all sorts of stories about what radio to buy (Is it true that ones bought in US have more channels?) and how to install. I wondered if someone might might be able to point me in the right direction – may be just about the ups and downs of SSB. and what I should and should not do!

I hope that there are members of the club who can help a raw novice in this field. many thanks

Stephen Foot
Water Music

On our 24v boat, full power transmission is evidenced by about an 8A draw. Should be more, but it is what it is.

Dick's advice regarding using power consumption as an indicator of transmission activity is true and tried, but look at this little anecdote: we have two battery monitoring systems. One old and original to the boat, and one the latest and greatest from Mastervolt. Very fancy. Well, the Mastervolt is nearly useless to determine SSB transmission consumption, because instead of giving an instant reading to the second, it seems to report a trend of power consumption over the past five seconds or so. So only the old and "obsolete" power meter is good for checking the radio.

The microphone on our M-710 was found to be broken in 2014. The little wire at the base of the microphone wore off, like a cheap microphone. Which it is! I think the replacement was only $25 or so. It's been fine since.

Cheers,