Saturday, November 13, 2004

Journal Entry – Saturday November 13, 2004 – SSB Communication

Author: Scott and Pam

Not much to report today, but we thought we would mention how communication takes place between cruisers. We have two radios aboard Tournesol, we have a marine VHF radio and a single side band (SSB) radio. The VHF radio is used for general communication with a range of up to 30 miles. In the United States the VHF radio is used for communications with the Coast Guard, Vessel Traffic Services, most marinas, to hail other vessels, and to obtain weather reports. Internationally the VHF services many of the same functions, but cruisers also use the VHF to network within a local area, anchorage, or group of marinas. For example, here in Cabo, cruisers are using channel 22A (the Coast Guard channel in the US) for general communications and haling other vessels. In each new location there is generally an agreed upon VHF channel that is selected for a local network.

The SSB radio is a high frequency transceiver that has the capability to send messages across great distances, and is also used for sending email and receiving weather faxes. Group communication or “nets” are scheduled daily with boats throughout a geographic area (i.e. Amigo Net is broadcast throughout Mexico) and cruisers use these virtual meeting areas to keep informed about many aspects of cruising such as weather, customs, facilities, and locations of friends. The SSB radio also functions as a ham radio and can provide licensed users with many more features including patches to telephone communications, and an entirely separate group of frequencies to communicate worldwide.

We are just learning about all of the features our SSB radio offers. We are now monitoring Amigo Net and the Blue Water Net here in Mexico. We also use our SSB radio to send and receive Sail Mail, email that is transmitted over the radio and decoded on our laptop computer while we are at sea.

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