BC Boaters Net 2024
The BC Boaters Net normally operates daily at 17:00 PDT during the summer months using the Vancouver Island Trunk System. See below for the dates. The purpose of this net is to provide information to mariners, and to facilitate communications between boaters and with friends and family back home. Methods of contacting us are shown below.
If you wish to see an azimuthal equidistant map of the world centred on coastal British Columbia (Victoria to be precise) please click here.
BCBN Operations
Planning is underway to open the BCBN on Saturday, July 05 2024 (subject to change) at 5:00 pm daily on the Island Trunk System and ending on August 29.
HF NetsThere are three HF nets that you may be interested in. They are run independently of the BC Boaters Net and we encourage you to check into them.The Great Northern Boaters Net (GNBN) is on 3870 KHz and it runs year round at 08:00 PT with several different net controls in BC and WA. Bill VE7WSM has taken the net over since Barbara VA7KLU retired.On the same frequency starting sometime late April until end of August or early September Darlene (Floyd) KL0YC in Dora Bay, Alaska runs the half-hour “Alaska & Northern BC” portion of the net at 07:30 PT (06:30 AK).The Northwest Boaters’ Net is 3865 KHz at 08:30 Pacific time.The West Coast Boaters’ Net 3860 KHz (formerly 3855 KHz) at 18:00 PDT, usually June to the end of September, for stations unable to access the Island Trunk System. |
VHF The BC Boater’s Net normally takes place on the Vancouver Island Trunk System at 5 pm PDT (17:00) daily starting in mid-June. View a Diagram of the VITS, dated February of 2022.. A big thank you to the dedicated group of hams that maintain the Vancouver Island Trunk System! Donations to the VITS can be made at… www.islandtrunksystem.org NOTE… VA7AQW (formerly VE7RNA) on 146.680 MHz (and all repeaters from Courtenay and south) require a tone of 141.3 Hz. VA7AQW is the southern-most repeater on the VITS. The Salt Spring Island repeater VE7RSI on 147.320 MHz + CTCSS 88.5 Hz is no longer used for the BC Boater’s Net. However, it still provides good coverage to the southern Gulf of Georgia area. It was recently replaced by a Yaesu DR-2X System Fusion repeater. It supports FM and the digital C4FM, called System Fusion by Yaesu. For FM users, it requires a tone of 88.5 Hz for FM. It also sends a tone, so you can set your radio up for tone decode as well as encode. That way, owners of FM-only radios don’t have to listen to digital transmissions. If your FM radio is capable of BCL (busy channel lockout) it would be a good idea to enable it to prevent it transmitting while a digital QSO is taking place. For users wishing to make the move to digital, there is a growing list of radios that support C4FM. Some are also APRS capable. |
New Boaters
All boaters that are amateur radio operators are welcome to check in. However, it does make the job easier for the net control station if your boat details are known. If you haven’t checked into the BCBN before, please download this text file (Boat-Name-Form.txt) and follow the instructions to send a description of your boat to the email address that is shown in the text file.
Contacts
Send an email to Len VE7BSA bcbn-info@bcbn.ca to request more information concerning the British Columbia Boaters’ Net.
During the boating season, traffic for boaters via email can be sent to bcboatersnet@bcbn.ca. This is an email reflector which will send your message to all of the net control stations. The appropriate net control will then relay your traffic to the intended boater. Please include the call sign of the intended recipient as well as the vessel name, and the location if you know it. Email should be in plain text format and not in HTML format.