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Fixed Mount VHF

A point of reference on Marine VHF licenses.  Under current regulations, it is not necessary for a US boat owner to have a license to operate a marine VHF radio while in the United States.  However, BOTH a Marine Operator's Permit and a Shipboard Station License are required if the US boat communicates with a station in a foreign country.  In other words, I'll need to get these licenses prior to my planned trip to the Bahamas.

Hand Held VHF

My Hand Held VHF is an Icom M3A model.  This is a relatively light weight and small unit.  It's power source is a battery pack containing six NiCad rechargeable batteries.  Available literature suggests that this radio will operate about 8 hours on a single charge with 5% transmit, 5% Receive, and 90% Standby operation.  For my purposes, this is minimally acceptable and I needed to improve the availability.  While the factory also specifies that the radio will operate from Alkaline batteries, there is no reason it will not operate from other types of batteries with an output between 1.2 and 1.5 volts.

The result is that I have replaced the NiCad batteries with Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) types.  The NiMH batteries are available with a capacity of 1,600 milliamp hours in double "A" size.  This compares favorably with the factory supplied NiCad batteries and their 700 milliamp hour capacity.  My Dr. Nicad charger will charge these NiMH batteries in about three hours just as easily as it will charge the lower capacity NiCad batteries.  My first tests with the radio were done on receive only without any transmit time.  The radio operated for over 22 hours using NiMH batteries while under the same conditions it ran for 11 hours with the factory NiCad batteries.

There is no free lunch.  The drawback to NiMH batteries is that they have a high rate of self discharge.  If left on the shelf, these radios will lose about 30% of their charge a month.  However, the plus side of NiMH chemistry is that there is no memory effect to the batteries so they can be recharged when partially discharged without a loss of overall capacity.

The other benefit of having two radios is that they can back each other up in case of failure.  The hand held can also be used from the dinghy in the event this becomes necessary.

 Cell Phone

Communications with a cell phone have become almost a necessity.   Some areas have better coverage via cell phone than via marine VHF.  The cell phone does not replace a marine VHF since the Coast Guard does not have the equipment to do direction finding on cell phones in an emergency.  However, to call home or hook up to the laptop's modem and check eMail, these devices are worth the small energy drain and cost.  The wonders of tele-communications and computer electronics now make some very complex tasks almost easy. However, data communications with current generation cell phones is effectively 14,400 Baud or less.  This make web surfing an expensive and frustrating proposition.  All of the above works fine if you are within cell phone range of American soil.  Once you leave the US Coastline however, all bets are off.  Out on Blue Water, the only real means of communication will be high frequency SSB (Single Side Band) or one of the various satellite phone options.  Both of these choices are expensive and since I won't be in the Bahamas and beyond for another year, I can wait it out to see what does develop over the interval.

Single Sideband Marine or Amateur Radio (SSB)

Commercial Marine SSB service is on the decline.  The major provider of this service was AT&T and they closed their Public Coast Stations in 1999.  Several smaller operations have jumped into this vacuum and now provide Internet eMail service over SSB radio.  Prices and quality of service may vary so this is a real case of Buyer Beware.  If you need to transact business via SSB radio and SSB eMail, you must use one of these commercial services.  Even so, if you absolutely, positively, must stay in touch at a moment's notice; SSB is not the way to go (however under these conditions, why are you out on a small sailboat??). 

Now that the FCC has restructured the Amateur Radio License system (effective April 15, 2000), an Amateur Radio Operator's General License is easier to obtain with only a 5 word per minute Morse code test and two written tests.  If your communication needs are purely just to keep in touch with the family, I believe that Amateur Radio is still the best and certainly the least expensive method of communication when venturing out of VHF or Cell Phone range from shore.  With modern equipment and the services provided by the amateur radio community, a small sailboat can stay in touch from anywhere on the globe.   This flexibility is not free - it requires an investment in both time (to earn an Amateur Radio License)  and money for equipment (much of which is available on the used market).

The ability to stay in touch via eMail is necessary to me so I'll plan for Amateur SSB radio on board prior to making any trips too far from the US shore line.  I have included a much more extensive section on SSB elsewhere on these pages.

Other Alternatives - The discussion below is useless since Iridium discontinued service in March of 2000 - some other services may start up to duplicate this coverage but that remains to be seen with the massive costs and spectacular failure that Iridium created

Once away from US waters, I expect to be within 3 to 5 sailing days of a port at all times.  In fact, most times I will be within a day or less of a marina and land based telecommunications facilities.  Given the current technology, another choice is to use an Iridium Pager to allow others to contact me in an emergency.   The message is limited to 200 characters - but after all, that is more than enough to say "ET - Phone Home!".  Then I can pull into the nearest port to use a cheap land line for my more extensive communication needs.  The Iridium pager system divides the globe up into some 25,000 quadrants and for about $70 a month (1999 prices), I can have text messages delivered to one of these areas.  If I move to another quadrant, I merely call the central computer and enter a new "address".  There are other service programs at higher costs that cover three or more quadrants simultaneously.

For electronic communication, this means I could use an acoustic coupler modem at a pay phone to check eMail and other tasks.  If I determine that I absolutely, positively, need to be available at all times via phone, then I expect I would have to use a satellite phone - and again, the Iridium solution is currently the only real choice for a small boat sailor.

For a short trip (two to three weeks off shore), I would seriously look into renting an Iridium setup.  This is available from a number of vendors and would be the preferred solution for a small boat.  I would still use a pager/phone combination for this since the pager can be left on at all times and will receive the message from inside the cabin.  However, the phone will need an outside antenna or need to be used from the cockpit in order to operate efficiently.

Outside of cost, there is still the geo-political issue with satellite phones since some countries do not allow their use due to internal telephone monopolies.  This does not effect the pager issue since this is not two way communication.  Currently (1999) the Bahamas and many of the Caribbean Islands do not permit the use of an Iridium phone due to the fact that the telephone service is a government owned monopoly and major income producer.

This page was last updated on July 29, 2001 03:45 PM

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