Rating: 
Summary: Good stuff!
Review: and Capt. Brown's book next to my HF Radio. A valuable tool, easy to understand and a good bit of humor on the side. A great gift for cruising yachtspeople that are also involved in Ham Radio and SSB.
Rating:
Summary: A BIBLE BY MY BED
Review: and Capt. Brown's book next to my HF Radio. A valuable tool, easy to understand and a good bit of humor on the side. A great gift for cruising yachtspeople that are also involved in Ham Radio and SSB.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent guide book on marine radio for beginners
Review: Capt. Marti Brown learned to use her marine Single Side Band radio the hard way. She bought one for her cruising boat and tried to master the intricacies of its use while exploring Florida and The Bahamas. Along the way she discoverd that many cruisers learned the same way she did by picking up little bits of knowledge along the way. Her book "Marine SSB for Idi-Yachts" is the result of many interviews with cruisers and a desire to fill the information void between the "die hard ham" and the casual radio user. SSB radio is a traditional method of marine communication that has increased in popularity because of new radio modem technology that allows users access to inexpensive wireless e-mail. Also, new software products have eliminated the need for weatherfax machines and allow cruisers to connect their SSB radio directly to their PCs. These sevices require a firm grasp of SSB operations and this book is a great introduction for beginners.Is it a complete guide to everything about ham or SSB radio? No, but it's not meant to be and that's the reason I liked it. You have to start somewhere and the simple guide book format of this rare little jewel is very easy to understand.
Rating: 
Summary: Little more than a brochure..not worth the money.
Review: I have managed to learn a lot more on this subject by surfing the web than I did from this book. Check out various sailing/boating websites, Ham Radio sites, and the FCC site for more/better information. I do wish someone would write a good and complete guide to the complexities of Ham Radio and SSB on boats.
Rating:
Summary: Little more than a brochure..not worth the money.
Review: I have managed to learn a lot more on this subject by surfing the web than I did from this book. Check out various sailing/boating websites, Ham Radio sites, and the FCC site for more/better information. I do wish someone would write a good and complete guide to the complexities of Ham Radio and SSB on boats.
Rating:
Summary: Good stuff!
Review: Marti has written a straightforward succinct book on a subject that many people find difficult. She makes it simple and covers the subject thoroughly.
Dave Wheeler
Contributing Editor for Southern Boating, also published in The Cruising Guide to Abaco, Motor Boating, Power & Motoryacht, The Best of Sail, Sea, and Yachting.
Rating: 
Summary: Kiss vs SSB
Review: One of the biggest challenges I face at MarineNet Wireless in providing solid reliable SSB E-mail services to the public is the customer not understanding how things work at all. This book pulls together many of the basic knowledge that is scattered everywhere and gets the new marine SSB user comfortable with that funny box with numbers in the display!!! This book makes my job much easier getting SSB customers up to speed.. Recommended reading.
Rating:
Summary: Overpriced brochure
Review: There are a few tidbits of information and a few tables in this book that are informative, but overall the book is worth about $6.95 not $20. The title idi-yachts -presumeably a spin on the "for dummies" series- is really a leap this book is really for idiots. Let me quote from the opening paragraph. "Very simply put, the SSB radio receives and transmits energy in the form of radio waves. When you transmit, these 'waves' move out of the radio, up through the antenna and out through space at the speed of light (300 million meters per second) which is pretty darned fast! Up in space these waves interact with layers of ionized gas. Like a mirror, the charged or ionized gas reflects the waves back at different angles.....You've experienced ocean waves under the keel...Now your getting into radio waves that travel through speace. Isn't cruising the most interesting thing? Never a dull moment." She later 'explains' simplex and duplex frequencies where after 3 rather uninformative sentences she reassures the reader with "Don't get too hung up on this part. You'll rarely if ever use half duplex frequencies....You could amaze your friends in a trivia game with this knowledge but thats about it." With regard to choosing frequencies she writes "All SSB frequencies are Upper Sideband (USB). USB is a mode of High Frequency (HF) radio reception that demodulates AM signals by processing that portion of the recieved signal above the transmitters carrier frequency. Whew! How about that? I think the only folks that will know what that means are electrical engineers." Well clearly the author doesn't understand it enough to do anything but quote back someone elses one-liner.
Not much help with explaining concepts though there is a nice reference card in the back of the book - so if you want to toss out $20 for a reference card thats your choice. But if you are looking for a book that explains shortwave radio in laymens terms you should look elsewhere.
Rating:
Summary: Overpriced brochure
Review: There are a few tidbits of information and a few tables in this book that are informative, but overall the book is worth about $6.95 not $20. The title idi-yachts -presumeably a spin on the "for dummies" series- is really a leap this book is really for idiots. Let me quote from the opening paragraph. "Very simply put, the SSB radio receives and transmits energy in the form of radio waves. When you transmit, these 'waves' move out of the radio, up through the antenna and out through space at the speed of light (300 million meters per second) which is pretty darned fast! Up in space these waves interact with layers of ionized gas. Like a mirror, the charged or ionized gas reflects the waves back at different angles.....You've experienced ocean waves under the keel...Now your getting into radio waves that travel through speace. Isn't cruising the most interesting thing? Never a dull moment." She later 'explains' simplex and duplex frequencies where after 3 rather uninformative sentences she reassures the reader with "Don't get too hung up on this part. You'll rarely if ever use half duplex frequencies....You could amaze your friends in a trivia game with this knowledge but thats about it." With regard to choosing frequencies she writes "All SSB frequencies are Upper Sideband (USB). USB is a mode of High Frequency (HF) radio reception that demodulates AM signals by processing that portion of the recieved signal above the transmitters carrier frequency. Whew! How about that? I think the only folks that will know what that means are electrical engineers." Well clearly the author doesn't understand it enough to do anything but quote back someone elses one-liner.
Not much help with explaining concepts though there is a nice reference card in the back of the book - so if you want to toss out $20 for a reference card thats your choice. But if you are looking for a book that explains shortwave radio in laymens terms you should look elsewhere.
Rating:
Summary: Overpriced brochure
Review: There are a few tidbits of information and a few tables in this book that are informative, but overall the book is worth about $6.95 not $20. The title idi-yachts -presumeably a spin on the "for dummies" series- is really a leap this book is really for idiots. Let me quote from the opening paragraph. "Very simply put, the SSB radio receives and transmits energy in the form of radio waves. When you transmit, these 'waves' move out of the radio, up through the antenna and out through space at the speed of light (300 million meters per second) which is pretty darned fast! Up in space these waves interact with layers of ionized gas. Like a mirror, the charged or ionized gas reflects the waves back at different angles.....You've experienced ocean waves under the keel...Now your getting into radio waves that travel through speace. Isn't cruising the most interesting thing? Never a dull moment." She later 'explains' simplex and duplex frequencies where after 3 rather uninformative sentences she reassures the reader with "Don't get too hung up on this part. You'll rarely if ever use half duplex frequencies....You could amaze your friends in a trivia game with this knowledge but thats about it." With regard to choosing frequencies she writes "All SSB frequencies are Upper Sideband (USB). USB is a mode of High Frequency (HF) radio reception that demodulates AM signals by processing that portion of the recieved signal above the transmitters carrier frequency. Whew! How about that? I think the only folks that will know what that means are electrical engineers." Well clearly the author doesn't understand it enough to do anything but quote back someone elses one-liner.
Not much help with explaining concepts though there is a nice reference card in the back of the book - so if you want to toss out $20 for a reference card thats your choice. But if you are looking for a book that explains shortwave radio in laymens terms you should look elsewhere.
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