"thuss" wrote in message
oups.com...
HF transmitters are very common on boats and only draw a lot of power
when transmitting and even then it's not enough to noticably discharge
a normal house battery bank.

True on voice SSB. Digital modes pretty much are like AM. They draw max
power the entire time the transmitter is keyed.

Last time we sailed from California to Hawaii we used the HAM/SSB
nightly to talk on the PacSea net,

Not much power since SSB draws power on the peaks only.

get weather fax,

RX for fax is pretty low power anyway.

and do phone
patches.

Same as any voice mode. Low overall power.

Even with our lowly 12V 450amp house battery bank I never
really noticed needing to recharge more frequently than every third
day, which is about how often I would charge the batteries when sitting
at anchor.

Sounds about right. Even using the digital modes, the amount of time one is
on the
air is pretty small. Unless one is ragchewing for hours on end a marine SSB
or
ham on board is not a heavy hitter.

-Todd

--
http://boatblogger/page/thuss
http://www.marinewireless.us

Falky foo wrote:
Problem is powering a HF transmitter with enough wattage without
draining
your batteries.



wrote in message
...
I have a general class ham license but have been out of
it a LONG time

I want to get back into some form of free ham radio
comms that would allow me to stay in touch with people
while living in an RV or boat

So.... I want something small and compact. And Im not
sure what "mode" of communications I want. I may want
some form of digital comms like packet or pactor....
not sure

Any advice on all this? What to get equip wise? What
modes to get into?