I finally finished installing my new ICOM 802 HF radio with Pactor III email capability. It was quite a job running all the cabling and copper foil that connects the transceiver, antenna tuner and underwater ground plane (2 dynaplates on our boat). Everything seems to be working as advertised. We can now send and receive emails (short with NO attachments) and send position reports to our blog site here.
And, we can now receive weather reports and wind Grib files which will let us know what the weather is doing out there in the open ocean away from VHF local wx broadcasts.
So, we're officially ready for some ocean passages now. We're planning on heading to NYC in June to meet with Greg and Beth, then to Nova Scotia in August to escape the Chesapeake summer heat. Working up for the big trip to the Mediterranean in the future.
