The Comeback Kid

In the fashion world, new becomes old, and then it's new again 20 years later. But in the electronics world, new becomes old, and then it goes to the dumpster, a relic of outdated technology and obsolete design.Just look at recent history. The audiocassette replaced the 8-track. Color TV replaced black and white. And the same has been true in marine electronics. Raster radars replaced the old PPIs. Loran replaced Omega, and now both of them are on their way to the history books thanks to GPS. But one 30-year-old technology is suddenly experiencing a boom in sales. True, today's new units now feature digital--as opposed to analog--technology, but the core of this product remains the same.

We're talking about the good ol' single sideband radio (SSB), and boaters have discovered they can use their SSBs not only for long-range voice conversations, but for long-range data communications as well. All it takes is a single sideband radio linked with a personal computer onboard.

The SSB revolution is akin to what happened in bicycle sales. Until recently, bikes were for kids and that was that. Then mountain biking came along and now they're all the rage. With SSB radios, sales were flat and most of them were bound for big sportfishermen and motoryachts who needed the long-range communications they provide. Still, the SSB radio was a secondary form of offshore communication, taking a back seat to the easier-to-use (but much more expensive) satellite communications terminals.

But given our growing need to stay in touch--and not just with voice, but with e-mail as well--SSB has emerged as perhaps the most cost-effective way to send and receive e-mail text messages. Of course, it's one thing to say a system "works," but its quite another to say how well it works, or how easy it is to use. So to check this out we conducted a field test using two new SSB radios to send and receive e-mail text messages. Here's the story on what's involved, what it costs, and how well it works.

Equipment: In order to use your SSB to access internet e-mail, you need three primary pieces of equipment: an SSB radio, an IBM-compatible fixed or laptop PC, and a special internal or external modem designed for this purpose. The minimum PC system requirements are very minimum by today's standards: 486 or higher processor, 33-MHz speed, 8 MB RAM, 100 MB hard drive, one available serial port, and Windows 3.1 or Windows 95 (recommended) operating system.

You will also need to install an e-mail software program on your PC, and this is supplied when you sign up with an SSB/email service provider. We conducted this test at the labs of Globe Wireless (GW) in Indiatlantic, Florida, a well-known maritime e-mail service provider.

How It Works: Globe Wireless was founded in 1911, and today they specialize in routing e-mail, telex, and fax messages to and from ships around the world from their headquarters in Half Moon Bay, California. This service is called GlobeEmail.

The GW network consists of 14 land-based SSB receiving stations around the world, and all of them are linked via landline to the company's headquarters in California. So when you're ready to send an email message to any internet address, the first step is to call up the software program on your PC, enter the email address, type in your message, and then hit "SEND." The computer then establishes a link through the modem to your SSB, and the radio immediately begins scanning for an open channel to a GW radio station.

Although an SSB radio's range can be several thousand miles, the computer will search for the closest available station since that will expedite the transmission of your message. In addition, each GW station has many different operating frequencies, and the computer will scan all of them to select an open frequency with the least amount of distortion and noise.

If you're not familiar with SSB high-frequency (HF) radio, its signals do not travel in a line-of-sight like VHF radio. Rather, they bounce off the ionosphere and are subject to changes in the atmosphere from day to night. As such, for long-range transmissions of more than 1,000 miles, the lower frequencies (4000, 6000, 8000-mHz) tend to work best in the evening hours, while higher frequencies (12,000 up to 25,000 mHz) work better during the day. For short-range transmissions of less than 1,000 miles, the reverse is true. In any event, in order to use the system all you have to do is turn the SSB on, since the computer controls the radio from that point forward and will select the frequencies for you.

After your PC selects the best GW station and frequency, it begins transmitting your message in "data bursts" to the GW station, and you should know that--when compared to typical landline modems which can transfer data as fast as 33,600 bits per second (baud) or more--this transmission is slow at just 500 baud. Still, your message goes through cleanly and correctly, and because email is a store-and-forward type of system (your message sits in the recipient's inbox until it's read), high-speed transmissions are not a requirement for effective email communications.

Once the GW shore station receives your radio message, they retransmit it via landlines directly to GW's central headquarters in California. From there, it's routed through the internet to the end-user's e-mail inbox. And if you need to send a message to someone who does not have an email address, GW can fax your text message to the recipient instead.

Going the other way, if someone on land wants to send you an email message, they'll simply send it to your GW e-mail address in California. It will sit in your inbox until you log-on to the system, at which point GW will transfer the message to you via SSB radio.

Test results: To conduct this test, I exchanged SSB/email messages with 's New York and Seattle offices using both the ICOM IC-M710 SSB and the all-new SEA 235 digital SSB. There were no performance differences between the radios in this test, since the radios were operating under remote-control from the PC and served only as the medium used to transfer data. There are, however, significant differences between the radios themselves (see below).

The GW e-mail system has two modes: manual and automatic. The automatic mode means you'll leave the SSB radio on all the time, and it will constantly scan for incoming transmissions. According to Vic Poor, technical consultant at GW, the automatic mode is primarily for the larger yachts who can dedicate the full-time use of an SSB for this purpose. The smaller yachts, says Poor, will more likely use their SSBs for a wide range of communications, and as such they'll use them in the manual mode. "Manual mode" means you have to turn on the radio and select your own GW frequency each time you want to use the system, but Poor also points out that if you start the system about 1/2 hour before you want to use it, the radio will have scanned the GW frequencies long enough to give you the best frequencies automatically.

The GW software is actually two programs in one: the "radio controller" selects the frequencies and runs in the background, while the "e-mail controller" handles the address book, messages, in/out boxes, and file attachments. When you send an e-mail, the text is transmitted in short bursts (3 characters per burst) on one frequency, and then the radio listens on another frequency to get a "handshake" confirmation from the GW station you're tuned to. As such, the radio flickers back and forth many times per second between the two frequencies, and your message is re-typed on the screen as it's being sent so you know how much of it went through. We had 100-percent transmission rate on all the e-mails we sent and received.

You can also attach a text file to your e-mail and send that as well. Again, the transmission is slow, but you are not charged per minute, you are charged according to the amount of data you sen