Marine Hf Radios

[CW1NY3478]

Can anyone recommend a good hf marine radio so i can monitor the upper ssb for ships and what is a good antenna. i live in the city. will i be able to monitor from the nyc area???

 

[zz0468]

I tend to favor overpriced surplus commercial gear, so I won't make any specific recommendations, but I will point out a few things to look for.

Marine HF is channelized, so something that's pll sysnthesized, and preferably with direct frequency entry is useful. There are a lot of low end receivers with 1 KHz tuning step size. That's no good. Look for 100 hz steps or less. You'll find there are some frequencies like 2096.5 khz that are on something other than a 1 khz step. Find something that has upper and lower sideband, selectable, as opposed to just something with an adjustable BFO. Frequency stability is more important than how many memories the radio may have.

Marine HF is used from 2 mhz to 25 MHz, so for an antenna, a random wire will work fine. When the bands are open and propagation is good, you'll find that you're limited by local noise, not what city you're in. I have no clue as to hf conditions in NYC, since I'm in L.A. but I'm in a noisy location, and I hear plenty.

That's my 2¢. Someone else can make a specific recommendation.

 

[ka3jjz]

Can anyone recommend a good hf marine radio so i can monitor the upper ssb for ships and what is a good antenna. i live in the city. will i be able to monitor from the nyc area???

This is one game where a portable is going to fail; since the channels are spaced 3khz apart or so, the fact is when the bands are open, selectivity is going to be pushed, and many of the smaller portables wouldn't be able to easily select one channel from the next.

Fortunately there are alternatives, and you don't need a very expensive HF marine radio to listen in. Any of the good older desktops such as the Yaesu FRG100, Kenwood R5000, Icom R71a and others will do the job nicely, particularly if they have good filtering (either built in or put in second hand). Even the PC controlled receivers (PCR1000, RX320 (my favorite, as it has up to 32 filter selections, dependent on the software used...) and others will do the job (although the PCR1000 has a propensity towards overloading on HF, so long antennas would not be my choice if I were using this rx).

As zz has mentioned, the marine band - which surprisingly hasn't been adjusted for new allocations in years, unlike the mil HF band - is channelized; this makes it a prime target for using a PC with a file for each of the bands, and the channels found in them. Mode is almost always USB regardless of band. Of course, a basic understanding of propagation is an absolute must.

I've heard less and less maritime HF over the years; a bunch has gone over to satellites, and some digital has gone to modes the average hobby folk can't decode, even with the best of software. But there's still stuff to be had, if you are patient.

As for antennas - well, living in NYC is definitely going to be a challenge. Get on the antennas forum, and be more specific about your conditions (apartment, condo, do you have any outdoor space to string antennas, attic, ect.) And check out our Antennas Wiki article - there are numerous possibilities....73s Mike