Equipment & Gear used on our CR Yachts 400DS sailboat
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Pactor Modem

For our e-mail service on our sailboat we purchased a Pactor modem for use with our icom IC-802 SSB tranceiver

About the STS Pactor modem

Communications while at sea are important to any sailor. While various forms of cellular telephone, satellite telephone, satellite email systems and satellite internet systems exist, many are either too expensive for ordinary cruisers, too difficult to implement or too unpredictable to rely on, the Pactor modem is the solution.

A Pactor modem, is a modem developed by SCS of Germany. It sends and receives emails via Single Side Band radio, SSB for short (a marine version of HAM radio favored by cruisers). SSB backs on the widespread availability and support of thousands of land stations, as well as a few gateway stations dedicated to the SSB email systems.

The one limitation of using SSB and Pactor modems is that they are a limited, by useability, to text only messages as they operate at baud rates peaking around 9600 kbps (remember the days of old Hayes dial-up modems?).

The Pactor/SSB combination may not be perfect, however it gives us a way to keep in touch via email while travelling into deep and distant locations.

Other items related to Single Side Band (SSB) communications:

Follow link for more about the ICOM AT-140 HF Automatic antenna tuner
Matches the transceiver to a long wire antenna with little insertion loss.

More about the ICOM 802 single Side Band Tranceiver (SSB)

More about the Gam / McKim Split Lead Single Side Band Antenna

More information about the Super Dynaplate by Guest

Explaining: Selecting the Right High Seas Communications (including e-mail)

 

Web links: Dockside Radio