Personally, less complicated is better that is unless you are
the second typ of person who supports use of ssb tx

Are you kidding? HF is much simpler than sat phones.

No not at all.......... you see I do not look inside the case. I look
to reliability, expense, and ease of use. So when I say iridium is
more simple campoared to SSB I am not refering to the inside circuits
I refer to reliablity, ease of use, overall coast including
installation and maintainence hours.

Take the new cost of an Iridium phone, antina (dont you just love
phonics. every school should be using it)
Then take a typical ssb ham set up. Your taking how to ground: use a
plate bolted to the hull, rolling foil out everywhere ,or rigging some
mouse trap on the shaft. Then antina tunner, and longwire if you have
a katch or a back stay hookup. The radio just has toooo many ancilary
parts-connections-wires and that all equals:
labor to install
labor to trouble shoot when it goes fubar
labor maintain all the connections that will corrode and give SKip OCD
trying to trouble shoot.

The irridum is simply just simple, easy, and equally reliable compared
to ssb/ham for at sea comm/weahter fax/direct
contact to SAR/USCG? call your elderly wife in flordia etc.

Unfutunatly, there is a cohort of people with one foot in the grave
who love to tinker with crap because it makes them feel smart and they
love to do it. Ham Radio geeks...... like CB geeks in the 70s . No
difference. I say do your crossword puzzels and stop misleading people

and those same guys go around telling people they are not safe and
stupid to cruise with out a tx ham radio. Have your fun soldering
Heath Kits together but be realistic when it comes to reliable and
safe at-sea communication.

All I have to do is read your Signature. that tells me there that you
are very proud of your ham license and do doubt there is some way to
tell the date of issue from the alpha-numeric code.

So I will signe with
Bob 107/80
That number designates which commercial diving school i graduated from
but ya know I dont reallyh give a **** so i dont put it there.
Oh how about this
Bob, AB RFPNW
or BOb MS, BS, BSEd but I dont really feel I need to constantly tell
eveyone what a cool guy I am like you

and youre not a Sailing/Vessel you are a Sailing/Yacht (S/Y)

73 es sail fast, dave KO4MI
S/V Auspicious