Retirement cruising communications

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by zboss

...... The SSB receiver (Sony, Grundig, etc.) can be hooked up to receive GRIBS on your laptop or iPad just fine.

SSB Receiver only – The Book of Sail

.......

You can not download GRIB files with a receive only SSB. It is possible to pickup the WeatherFax broadcasts, but that is not a GRIB and is not available on-demand.

[zboss]

Originally Posted by Paul L

You can not download GRIB files with a receive only SSB. It is possible to pickup the WeatherFax broadcasts, but that is not a GRIB and is not available on-demand.

Sorry yes... as Auspicious says:

"NOAA and the USCG, like other services worldwide, send synoptics over weatherfax not GrIBs. Synoptics are better - providing more information and more analysis."

http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/marine/rfax.pdf

[Time2Go]

Originally Posted by Sailmon

Excellent point. Had not finished researching monthly Iridium cost.
How does the weather feature work on the InReach? What do you use for emails?

You request the Marine Forecast by sending a text
You have the option of using your present location or entering
long & lat coordinates. What we did was figure out via our passage
plan where we thought we would be in the next 12 to 24 hours
and request the forecast for those coordinates ( love my charts)
A request like this costs one dollar.
Inreachdelorme.com/weather has more info
One of the best features of the InReach is that after the initial purchase
(about 300.00 US) and an annual fee of 25.00
You can turn the service on and off in 30 day increments.
So right now it's in my sock drawer not costing a penny.
In May when I go out for my first trip I'll activate it, at a cost
Of 34.95 per 30 day period.
Have a look at their site for more pricing info
Weather info is from OCENS
Email is limited to 160 character texts.
The think worked flawlessly for me along the east coast of the US
from NY to Fla and also from Denmark to Gibralter
Cheers
Neil

[Pizzazz]

Another good option for coastal weather is SiriusXM. There are many receivers available cheaply on eBay that interface with most chartplotters. Monthly cost is $29.99 and you get really good information, weather, pressure, waves, buoy observations... It is good for up to 200-300 miles offshore. I am very happy with the forecasts. I also recommend an SSB though. It is just good for staying in touch without cryptic messages or satellite airtime.

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by zboss

Sorry yes... as Auspicious says:

"NOAA and the USCG, like other services worldwide, send synoptics over weatherfax not GrIBs. Synoptics are better - providing more information and more analysis."

http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/marine/rfax.pdf

A WeatherFax is a different product from a GRIB. They are both useful, not one better than the other. The WeatherFax is issued in multiple hour increments usually up to a max of 96 hrs in the future. They include the forecasters interpretation of the various GRIB models. They are broadcast at specific times, in some cases the Faxes are repeated in only two periods a day. It can take a long time to download a Fax and if you miss the schedule because you had to do something on the boat you have to wait a long time for the next broadcast. The reception quality is sometimes poor with parts of the Fax essentially unreadable.
A GRIB is on-demand and you can go out 7 to 10 days in the future -- which is very helpful when making a passage. The reception is either all or nothing as it is digital. The GRIB is the raw computer model without the forecasters input. Most cruisers use GRIBs. Sometimes they say they use PredictWind or PassageWeather, etc, but these are just GRIB displays.

[chuckr]

Originally Posted by Sailmon

Excellent point. Had not finished researching monthly Iridium cost.
How does the weather feature work on the InReach? What do you use for emails?

We did take a look a while back and decided it was out of our budget -- to much - we chart all our costs (see dollars and cents - 7 years of cost data) and what would we have to give up for the Iridium

[chuckr]

Originally Posted by Paul L

A WeatherFax is a different product from a GRIB. They are both useful, not one better than the other. The WeatherFax is issued in multiple hour increments usually up to a max of 96 hrs in the future. They include the forecasters interpretation of the various GRIB models. They are broadcast at specific times, in some cases the Faxes are repeated in only two periods a day. It can take a long time to download a Fax and if you miss the schedule because you had to do something on the boat you have to wait a long time for the next broadcast. The reception quality is sometimes poor with parts of the Fax essentially unreadable.
A GRIB is on-demand and you can go out 7 to 10 days in the future -- which is very helpful when making a passage. The reception is either all or nothing as it is digital. The GRIB is the raw computer model without the forecasters input. Most cruisers use GRIBs. Sometimes they say they use PredictWind or PassageWeather, etc, but these are just GRIB displays.

We really like the GRIBS -- when we arrive at a port we have some idea about when we want to leave and use the gribs to take a look at the long range weather - if in inreach is only 12-24 hours that would not do us a lot of good in many cases - we do a lot of planning where we want to be for fronts coming through for both protection and a nice place to visit
As for the weatherfax - yea it takes a bit of time to get and valuable but a lot of time --
Even sitting here for the winter we are still looking out 5-7 days to plan our work and visits - Right now we know we are getting 3-4 days of nasty cold rainy weather coming so we fill our water tanks, extra food, extra book, take a long walk on a sunny day and prep for to hibernate for a few days - but after that looks like a nice sunny day for the week local farmers food market

[Kenomac]

Just use an Ipad or cell phone for weather data using the Predictwind app. Wait until you're actually out cruising before making an investment in yesterdays tech eg: SSB and Pactor, otherwise you'll end up spending 10x more money for equipment and service charges than you will on cellular data over the next few years. We have an SSB onboard but never use it because the rest of the world has great cellular coverage.

All we use are ipads and cell phones and purchase data sim cards as we go. The ipad will also replace the Pactor modem for downloading weather data (weather fax) via your existing SSB via a free app called HF FAX.

The world has changed.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Sailmon

Thanks All,
I'm new to forum, ...

Greetings and welcome aboard the CF, Bob.

[sailjumanji]

We spent a couple of months in the Bahamas, earlier this year. We have Sprint plans in US, and used our phones in Bahamas via their Global Roaming plan. For my HTC phone, that just meant turning on global roaming and data. For my wife's I-phone, the instructions were a bit more difficult so you should contact sprint for that.

Before we left, Sprint rep said the plan would work in some larger islands, but some of BTC towers were incomparable with our newer phones. That all turned out to be wrong. Our phones worked with every BTC tower. North Bimini, Nassau, Chub, all thru the Exumas except in the Exuma Park - as there are no towers. Was able to get good voice service, texting no problem, and even kept up with this forum, passageweather sites, etc. The speed is only 2G, but didn't really notice it. Cost was confirmed on my bill at $0.20 per voice minute, free texting and free data. Plus I have an underlying Sprint plan I was still paying for.

Compared to BTC $0.90 per minute, it was good deal. And when you need to upload data, just find a restaurant or marina with Wi-Fi. Just need to be a patron as all we found were secured servers. No problem.

For weather, we purchased a Sony SSB receiver. About $120. I am sure someone is going to dispute this, but a friend traveling on a Seawind had the large Icom SSB and antenna running up the stay, and his reception was no better than mine with the portable. Listened to Chris Parker every morning for his weather broadcasts.

We also had a Delorme Inreach on-board. It was paired with an I-pad, which made it easier to use. Subscribed to OCENS weather forecast with that unit, which costs around $10 per month. Got 72 hour weather forecasts in 4 hour increments, which included all of the standard wind and precip stuff, and also wave and swell info. Most times when there was a wind change, you had to wait for the waves and swells to change as well or it made travel uncomfortable. We found OCENS to be pretty accurate. Plus we could get as many forecasts as we wanted, for as many lat/long as we could pick along our route. Chris Parker was very good for tracking fronts, picking crossing dates, and more "macro" events. But the OCENS forecast was very much more local. People will dispute the accuracy of "point" forecasts, but we found them pretty accurate. And I didn't want to mess around with GRIBS, or interpreting such.

[Cap Bill Des]

Bob- We've done 4 years in the Bahamas and Eastern Caribbean. For weather just get a $125 portable battery- powered SSB receiver and listen to NOOA's weather 4 times per day if you like. Totally sufficient. We buy sim cards if we will be near cell towers long enough to make it worth it. We do have a DeLorme, which we just use for letting people know where we are and OK when we're out of touch, and for urgent txting. Good luck!

[sailjumanji]

Originally Posted by Time2Go

You request the Marine Forecast by sending a text
You have the option of using your present location or entering
long & lat coordinates. What we did was figure out via our passage
plan where we thought we would be in the next 12 to 24 hours
and request the forecast for those coordinates ( love my charts)
A request like this costs one dollar.
Inreachdelorme.com/weather has more info

We subscribed to the OCENS forecasts directly thru OCENS, and not thru Delorme. As such, we got both the standard 72 hour forecast info (in four hour increments), for $8 per month. Unlimited number of requests. I think the wave and swell data was another $2 per month, and came back for the same text-requested locations and times.

After our trip, Delorme came out with the competing $1 per forecast program. We used the forecasting very frequently during our trip. The OCENS program was therefore cheaper than the Delorme offering.

[sailjumanji]

Originally Posted by Pizzazz

Another good option for coastal weather is SiriusXM. There are many receivers available cheaply on eBay that interface with most chartplotters. Monthly cost is $29.99 and you get really good information, weather, pressure, waves, buoy observations... It is good for up to 200-300 miles offshore. I am very happy with the forecasts. I also recommend an SSB though. It is just good for staying in touch without cryptic messages or satellite airtime.

Does the Coastal program extend all the way down thru Exumas? Or do you have to go to the more expensive Offshore program for that?

https://www.siriusxm.com/sxmmarine/packages

[westwinds]

About the old SSB, There is probably nothing wrong with it, but rather a problem with an antenna or wiring to the antenna. If wiring or antenna is bad, many times you can receive, but not transmit. Transmitting throws a lot of power into the wiring and if you have high resistance from corrosion or trauma to the wiring, no signal gets out. Get hold of a local Radio Amateur, they probably have a club in the area. Else, try local radio installer.

Not sure about using SSB for emergency communication. Did the Coast Guard stop monitoring the emergency channels for SSB?

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by Kenomac

Just use an Ipad or cell phone for weather data using the Predictwind app. Wait until you're actually out cruising before making an investment in yesterdays tech eg: SSB and Pactor, otherwise you'll end up spending 10x more money for equipment and service charges than you will on cellular data over the next few years. We have an SSB onboard but never use it because the rest of the world has great cellular coverage.

All we use are ipads and cell phones and purchase data sim cards as we go. The ipad will also replace the Pactor modem for downloading weather data (weather fax) via your existing SSB via a free app called HF FAX.

The world has changed.

You must mean the rest of your world. Try crossing the Pacific, or the Atlantic or going from the east coast US to Virgin islands or any of the many other standard passages done by cruisers. You can't rely on cell for weather if you are making passages. There are also many islands where cruisers go that do not have any cellular -- that's part of the beauty of going to remote places. I don't doubt the Med is well covered by cellular.