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.

Last time we sailed from California to Hawaii we used the HAM/SSB
nightly to talk on the PacSea net, get weather fax, and do phone
patches. 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.

-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?