If you want more detail on ship's comms and sensors, see if you can find old MegaTraveller materials, as IIRC there was a lot more detail on that sort of thing.
I usually don't make it too complicated; unless there is some reason for a difficulty in ship-to-ship or ship-to-port comms, they just happen. Keep in mind light-speed lag; at significant distances, comms will tend to be an exchange of recorded messages, as the lag makes real-time conversation impractical.
One choice to make is whether such comms are broadcast (radio) or narrow-cast (laser/maser). I tend to assume that ship's comms are generally by laser if they can see their target, as they would have no reason to share their business with anyone who might want to listen in. You can also get into various degrees of detail regarding encryption, as even a laser spreads significantly at interplanetary distances, so a ship docked at the port you are communicating with might also be able to receive your laser comm just due to beam spread.
On the other hand, some folks like to assume that most comms are broadcast, and have a system of standard channels, so that you can listen to chatter between other ships, or if you know what channel they are using can eavesdrop on conversations intended to be private. There was an old JTAS article with a lot more on standard and emergency channels for broadcast comm systems.
