Be very careful of ever listening to Larry...he is often a technical
idiot...but not always. So listen to him only when you well understand the
turf...he has a gem once in a while but not for the newby.

PSK is a toy mode for rag chewing. It is nice. I use it and recommend it.
But it is not for any even semi-serious conversation. It is a different
version of operating AM on the long wave bands. Fine for hobbyist but not
really practical. Good CW for the Morse defective.

Serious boat stuff is done in PACTOR for email and similar or good old SSB
for position stuff or various nets. The email systems are actually pretty
sophisticated and involve a lot more than Pactor. But Pactor is pretty well
required.

Ideally one goes with some combo like an ICOM 710 and 706. The 710 is an
SSB receiver that will work on the ham bands while the 706 is an amateur
radio that will work on the marine HF bands. Non-emergency use of the 706
on marine bands is illegal but works quite well. I would however consider
it an emergency any time I needed to work on marine HF and did not have a
legal marine radio available. YMMV.

Jim Donohue KO6MH

wrote in message
...
If you get your shore stations also setup with PSK31, you'll have
reliable
text comms from any point on the planet. I worked a Japanese station that
was running a 20 meter dipole and 10 watts! PSK stations will raise hell
with you if you hog the bandwidth with big powerful transmitters. It is
simply amazing how far down in the noise the computer running this
software
can copy.....a station you can't even hear!

As it's free.....give it a try!

73, and welcome back to ham radio

DE Larry W4CSC

Very cool!

Will definitely check it out

Any rigs your recommend buying to use the above?