Wow, I didn’t know you were into radios as well! I did my HF Ham radio course at a very young age with my dad as preparation for our sailing journey (Starlink wasn’t popular back then), and since our boat had an HF radio, we thought—why not?

I absolutely love talking on the HF radio, especially during offshore passages. For instance, on the trip from New Zealand to Fiji, which took seven days, we were in contact with 12 boats. Everyone was grabbing each other’s coordinates and having small chats every evening. I even set up a net where I was talking from Western Australia to people in both Australia and New Zealand. It was really fun.

Later on, we installed a Pactor modem so we could send emails to family. I remember i used to crawl into the corner of the boat to clean the ground plate from corrosion to ensure we got a stronger signal.

I'm so glad my current boat has an HF radio—I can't wait to start using it! I've got a ham call sign that I get to keep for life, and honestly, it's the best one out there. Being on a steel boat, I shouldn't run into any grounding issues either, which is a huge plus. 😁

Thank you for sharing—I totally agree with everything you mentioned. On my boat, the only backup I would truly rely on is the HF radio.