Alan,
I'll let Rich speak for his experience with the SGC2000, but one of my friends who is in the business of re-selling and installing marine HF radios has an SGC2000 on board. He has a similar opinion on it as Rich expressed, but he still uses it on board, and he is fairly active on the Ham frequencies. He does not do a lot of DSQing, but he does (or used to) participate in the most of the cruisers nets on the East Coast and the Caribbean. I think if he ever went cruising (never happen) he would upgrade the SSB – he buys radios wholesale. In the meantime it meets his needs.
So I think whether the SGC2000 sucks for you depends on how important it is in your cruising plans and where you cruise. If you're just going to the Caribbean for a few years and have a Ham license, the SGC is probably adequate. If you want to cross an ocean maybe you should consider an upgrade. I assume you have the SGC230 tuner, which most knowledgeable people consider the best. That's what I use with my 802. So if you decide to upgrade the SSB don't let the SGC230 go, it will work with just about any marine SSB.
That Pactor modem will put a lot of demand on your radio so that should be a good test of the adequacy of the SGC for your needs. If you can reliably connect to SailMail or Winlink, why upgrade? Of course success with SailMail and Winlink has as much to do with the quality of the counterpoise as it does with the HF radio.
With regard to Winlink and Sailmail. Last summer, sailing back to the US, I found it very difficult to connect to Winlink, but consistently connected to SailMail. That even though there were a lot more stations in the Winlink network and generally better propagation available than to the single SailMail station in Europe (Brussels). Eventually I stopped attempting to connect to Winlink and used SailMail the rest of the way. Once I was within 1500 nm of the US SailMail stations I was able to connect reliably with them. I did have to request additional time from SailMail – you are limited to 90 minutes in any 7 consecutive days. I never discovered or got an explanation of why I had such great success with SailMail and such little success with Winlink.
John
On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 6:27 AM, alan P < ([email][/email])> wrote:
Rich,
Does your SGC-2000 suck that bad. My boat came with
one and a tuner. I have not had much time to play with
it so I don't know how “good” it is. Although I have
talked to some guy from Texas and have listened to
one of the cruisers net when the weather is right and
the stars are aligned. I have purchased a pactor
modem this winter and plan to start messing around.
alan
—
Regards,
John Stevenson
http://www.svsarah.com
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