In article ,
Larry wrote:

Everyone I know with an installed HF and Ship License is in violation of
the HF monitoring 2182 Khz requirement simply because the 2-3 Mhz marine
band is nothing but a huge static noise source, virtually unused by
anyone in the last 30 years. The M802 has a nice squelch, but it's
totally worthless below 6 Mhz as the atmospherics load simply overwhelms
it the lower you go in freq even at the maximum squelch setting,
rendering it useless. Noone in the boat would ever get any off-watch
sleep with 2182 listening for a distress call on a 41' ketch.

I really HAVE monitored it, trying to see how much range my triattic
capacitor hat has added to the 55' backstay antenna. We installed an
insulator on either end of the triattic with a center-connected jumper
down to just under the top insulator on the backstay. Range below 7 Mhz
and reported signal levels on the 75 meter ham phone band increased
markedly! The tuner loves the extra length. Great reports from the
Caribbean illegal phone freqs above 4Mhz, too....but they make me
nervous about the ship license implications. Those freqs are NOT
authorized Marine channels on any chart I find.

Every time I leave the boat, I toggle the M802 back to transmitting on
the marine channels ONLY to keep my captain outa jail.....(c;]

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Larry W4CSC

Up here in the North Pacific, we set the MF/HF Radio on 4125.0 Khz
while underway. This is the Primary for USCG Kodiak, which is the Primary
for the North Pacific. 2182.0 Khz has been useless since the inception
of modern SSB Radio's were fitted in the early 70's. It is so bad that
USCG CommSta's rarely even have a working receiver on that frequency,
because of lack of parts for the radios. Our NOAA HF Wx Stations use
4125.0 Khz to get local Wx Data from the Commercial Freight and Fishing
Fleets, twice a day, and then transmit the High Sea's Forecast two hours
later, for the North Pacific, by Region. This whole Wx senerio was start
40 years ago by a Fishing Mom (Peggy Dyson) in Kodiak, that transmitted
the Wx each evening to her then Hubby (Oscar Dyson) who was a Crabber
out in the North Pacific. Her Northern N-550/N/542 1Kw Hf Station WBH-29
was known and heard as the Voice of Kodiak, and used by all the Maritime
Stations on daily Basis. She would log ships positions and local Wx Data
for each vessel and more than once initiated a Search & Rescue when a
ship failed to report in two days in a row. She saved a LOT of Lives.
It was a very Sad Day, when Peggy reTired, and the NOAA Wx Stations took
over the Job. I still have a recording of her LAST Sched, somewhere...

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Bruce in alaska
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