Pensacola FL Sailing Blog – sailingnightwatch

I think I have read more than I needed to (causes confusion in my old mind) and talked to enough people about choices. The latest in a SSB is the addition of DSC. I have that feature in the VHF along with all the other bells and whistles. I enjoy being able to punch in on the VHF a friend’s code who we are meeting at some anchorage and have his location show up on the plotter. Cool. I have never used the DSC function, thank God, but have heard it go off a few times. That is very neat. Being able to activate the function at greater distances and have a ship well over the horizon hear and hopefully respond to an emergency is worth the new price. This function became the decision making point. Therefore, I was going to have to buy a new unit.

I also talked to some local Ham operators. After sorting through all the verbiage on new verses used and tuner and no turner, I came to the conclusion that Ham operators are very much akin to sailors. It is not so much where we are going, getting there is the fun. Seeing the twinkle in the eye of an operator as he explains the fine tuning using the jargons of the “trade” is like listening to a sailor telling about a particular fast or heroic passage. Will I get my Ham license in the future? Probably. But I will buy a tuner for the antenna. I do not have a shack to sit in to wile away my evenings.

I did not know there were as many brands as there are. Furuno and Icom seam to be the brands most known in the US. Our plans are to cruise the island and the east coast of the US. I would like to do the Med, but that is a real pipe dream at this time. Therefore I did not give a lot of thought to those units made in Europe. There seams to be a lot of Icoms out there, including in this area. Therefore, I bought an Icom M802.