Meth1_Background_Background or why a blog of a sailor on radio, why SDR, why starting now

Meth1_Background

Background or why a blog of a sailor on radio, why SDR, why starting now?

My firm belief : the best sailing boats are those of friends and charter companies. 

However, as a skipper or co-skipper, by 2006, I had become more and more concerned with safety and reliability issues of the navigation tools. Of course, I put questions in advance on the availability of official updated charts, both in paper and electronic, availability and specifications of plotters, AIS and Radar receivers, radios, safety equipment, etc. The usual answers were always quiet assuring on each and all topics of enquiry. Nevertheless, the reality in the first day in the boat was always frightening. Both, the paper and electronic charts were outdated and/or just fancy commercial ones with no traceability. Yes, the boat had even an AIS transponder but just for sniffing your coordinates and sending the data to the charter staff; not for your own use. If you want to be proficient with the plotters, radios and all the essential navigation gear in the boat you would need to spent days reading the manuals, testing, asking for help … instead of enjoying your sailing holidays with your friends or family.

So,  I decided to build my one portable pack of navigation tools with two maincriteria:

• safety, reliability, ease of deploying and using in any sailing boat I intended to skippering;
• compact enough to be carried in a cabin case.

By 2007 I was very happy with almost all of my own set of navigation tools. The notable exception: radio hardware and software to receive timely safety warnings, notices to marines and other useful information. So I continued following the usual path as most cruisers: (1) just before leaving the marina I rushed to find a WiFi spot to check and download the relevant information (2) praying during the coastal or offshore trip for stable meteo conditions and no bad surprises of any kind. And what about the VHF messages issued by the local marine authorities? Let us also admit it: we did not get it because we were very busy changing sails (or just relaxing), messages were  scramble by lots of noise, the radio operator had a weird accent, etc.

Therefore, I decided to start a systematic search and test of possible solutions. First decision: the best approach would be to experiment with mid range SDRs. Not those cheap dongles (but see my previous post on AIS) nor the high-end systems used for military, scientific and ham communications. Instead, the ones which are serious pieces of radio hardware/software (check radio ham reviews) in spite of its funny names. For example, HackRF, AirSpy or SDRplay with tag prices in the range of 100-300 Euros. (more on this option in a future post). Unfortunately by 2008,  I started facing severe personal problems. And both, my sailing holidays and radio equipment tests have been postponed.

So, in short, the motivation for starting this blog and post maybe a half dozen of messages, is quite simple: to share the results of my past research on portable radio solutions for skippers. No, I did not reach a “definitive solution” but at least my test results might be useful for other skippers and maritime radio hardware and software developers. And hopefully, I’ll be able to post further and new tests in a foreseeable future.