"Steve" wrote in
:

I suppose if I ever get my Ham license I will have a better
understanding of these things. So please bare with me and my dumb
questions.

Ham license is now really easy. FCC hands you all the test questions, you
memorize them, then take the bogus test(s). The best way to memorize them
is to keep taking the free tests from qrz.com on:
http://www.qrz.com/p/testing.pl
Pick Technician and when you get it passable go take the test from your
local volunteer ham examiner. Then start in on the General and repeat.

You'll need a code practice generator program for your next cruise from:
http://www.qrz.com/download/morse/index.html
They're all really simple programs, so download 'em all that say code
practice and try 'em to see what you like best. Most generate random
letters and numbers. Try to study code at 13 wpm letters with spacing to
make it slower. Copying true 5wpm is painful. To increase your speed
later, all you do is put the 13wpm letters closer together...(c;

Rich boaters are fed buying Gordon West's expensive course. I've just
given you your ham license study course for free. MEMORIZE the test and
don't worry about becoming a crack electronics technician. This isn't
about education, it's about passing a truly stupid test they hand out. One
of the questions on my Extra Class test a few years ago was something like:

"How many days before you launch your low earth orbit satellite (I suppose
from the cow pasture out back..(c are you required to notify the FCC you
are putting up a satellite?"
How stupid can it get? Why does a ham have to memorize stupid numbers,
dates, times he would LOOK UP if he were going to fire his Titan Rocket
from the cow pasture out back?!! Idiots....


That said, I'm looking through the freq. listings for my HF SSB and
note that in each group of channels the majority will be Duplex and at
the very end of the listing there are about ~5 or so that are Simplex.

Two words "Ma Bell"! The American Telephone and Telegraph Monopoly
Corporation setup itself as the marine communication monopoly in the days
when they had the government bureaucrats under their control. To keep you
from using the marine HF channels WITHOUT PAYING THEM, most channels were
setup for "marine operator" use to charge shipping for HF use. Only a very
few channels were not included so you could call the CG (or whatever
government bureaucrats controlled the waterway you were in) and ship-to-
ship comms. Having a rule change leadtime measured in decades at the ITU
and FCC, these idiotic duplex channels persist, even though most of the
shore stations they connected you to (WOM, WCC, etc.) have long since been
abandoned, their stations dead.

Shore stations still use duplex, including the CG. This lets them keep
monitoring a ship frequency while transmitting on the shore frequency from
a remotely-sited transmitter far enough away so it doesn't kill their
receivers.

The channels for USCG on all HF bands and the channel designations are on:
http://www.navcen.uscg.gov/marcomms/...cy/default.htm
Open each band from here and you'll see what all the channels are used for.
Don't forget to store the WEFAX channels in your Icom's memory, either. If
you plug your headphone jack into your computer's line in jack, there are
many WEFAX programs that will let you look at and print out the weather fax
charts, at amazingly slow 1939 speeds, on your laptop or printer.
You can get free WEFAX programs from:
http://www.qrz.com/download/sstv/index.html
or you can do what boaters do and pay $600 for them from some commercial
company....(c;



My rig is an ICOM 706 Mark II G (ham) which I want to also use on
Marine SSB (in an emergency).
706 modifications so it will transmit anywhere is on:
http://www.qrz.com/download/mods-i-k/ic706mii.txt
It requires you to remove surface-mounted diodes so you'll need a tiny iron
or you'll be sorrrriiiiieeee....(c;

Lots more radio modification instructions are available from:
http://www.qrz.com/download/main/mods.html


I need to program in some marine channels and am limit to about 100
memory locations. Programming in the split, duplex is just a bit more
complicated. I was wondering if there is a good reason to stick with
duplex or simplex???

The channels for USCG on all HF bands and the channel designations are on:
http://www.navcen.uscg.gov/marcomms/...cy/default.htm


Also, as I tune through the bands, I seldom hear any traffic on the
marine channels (assigned freq). Mostly it is just the USCG regional
weather, etc. If I find anything in the way of ship traffic, it is
foreign.

This is 2005, not 1948. Sane shipping companies use MARISAT or some other
satellite service for comms, now. No noise, totally digital and private,
no $78,000/year "radio officer" on each ship, the master uses a simple
fill-in-the-blanks program like email on his cabin computer terminal and
presses the SEND button. Problem solved....IN ANY WEATHER, I might add.


I have had the SSB installed for about 8 months now and don't have the
faintest idea of where and how to do a radio check.. (about ready to
schedule something with "Bruce In Alaska".)

The uscg instructions are on:
http://www.navcen.uscg.gov/marcomms/boater.htm
Protocols are pretty much like talking to the CG on VHF. You do need to
learn a little about propagation to pick a band for the path distance to
the station you are trying to contact. One good way of finding out what
the best path is from you to CG is to listen when they are reading the wx
broadcast. Switch between frequency bands on the CG broadcast frequency on
each one to see which one has the loudest signal. That's the best band to
talk back to him on when you need him.


Just how do I gain proficiency on marine SSB while observing proper
protocol.

Also, which channels would be the most likely choices to program in.
The USCGs would be logical, but where is most of the marine traffic
and general marine communications?? I am most interested in medium
range (since I my rig is only 100 watts) and I'm going to be
interested in boats and marine conditions in the Pac. NW and SE
Alaska.

Straight from the USCG website on boater:
"Radio checks with the Coast Guard Communications Stations on DSC and HF
radiotelephone are allowed."
Call 'em on the HF radio on various bands on their calling frequency. Be
prepared to move to their working frequency as they won't talk to you on
the guard channel. Tell them you're new to HF and you'd like a radio check
and ask them questions...right there on HF....you'd like their opinion on.

I've never had one bite my arm off. CG ops are really not bad guys and are
very helpful IF THEY ARE NOT TERRIBLY BUSY....which on HF they're not these
days. Hell, the ships just call 'em on the phone!!


Steve
s/v Good Intentions


Sorry you can't learn the code the way I did when I was a kid....listening
to WCC or WOM and the ships passing traffic into the night on my borrowed
Hallicrafters Sky Buddy hooked to the 800' longwire behind the house. I
didn't get much sleep many nights when something was going on on the CW
marine bands....