JoAnne and I are both hams, Amateur Radio Operators.  One of our plans for the boat was to use ham radio to remain in contact with friends.  Most of our friends however, aren’t ham radio operators.  We do have some that are, but not all that many.  We have some cruiser friends that are sailors first, hams way in the bottom of the list and they aren’t really used to doing “hammy things”.

So, with that in mind our radio hasn’t yet been installed in the ship.  Oh I took it out a few weeks ago and placed it in the area above the Nav station where it will eventually be permanently mounted.   I need to do a lot to get it mounted there though.  Of course, that’s currently on hold.

But, the radio is an ICOM IC735, with a tuner and a power supply.  I going to wire it all up to the DC power buss when I get it all installed.  The antenna is a random length wire – an insulated backstay serves as the antenna.

The IC735 is pictured below in an old shot of the ham shack.  It is the radio sitting on the desk surface, center picture.  That was taken many years ago, and I don’t have most of that equipment any more.

N0NJY’s Ham Shack in Colorado

We have a Tigertronics external sound card that will connect to the laptop to give us a connection to Winlink allowing us to get email out via HF if necessary.

We have a VHF/UHF rig as well, which also, sadly has yet to be mounted in an appropriate location.  Eventually, I’ll be back on the air.

We don’t yet have a Marine SSB rig.  I’ll probably replace the HF right with one that does all the ham bands and the marine band when I can glean enough money from a part time job someplace down the road.