BC Boaters Net
Categories :
| The BC Boaters Net 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 The BC Boaters Net will operate from June 14 to September 12 2019. VHF: The BC Boater’s Net takes place on the Vancouver Island Trunk System starting on June 14 2019 at 5 pm PDT (17:00) daily. The BCBN can be accessed from any of the repeaters connected to the VITS. View diagram of the VITS. A big thank you to the dedicated group of hams that maintain the Vancouver Island Trunk System! www.islandtrunksystem.org NOTE… VE7RNA on 146.680 MHz now requires a 141.3 Hz tone. It is the southern-most repeater on the VITS. The Salt Spring Island repeater VE7RSI on 147.320 MHz is no longer used for the BC Boaters 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, FM users 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 are several radios that support C4FM. They are the FT1DR (out of production), FT2DR, FT-70DR and the new FT-3DR HTs and the FTM-400XDR, FTM-100DR, FTM-3200DR, FTM-3207DR and FTM-7250DR mobile radios as well as the FT-991A HF radio.. The FT1DR & FT2DR HTs are waterproof. The FT-70DR is splash proof. The FTM-400XDR mobile radio with an absolutely gorgeous colour touch sensitive screen. The FTM-100DR is a more economical version. The FTM-3200DR and FTM-3207DR are “stripped down” 2M and 70cm radios. The new FTM-7250DR is a “no-frills” dual-band / single receive radio. The new FT-3DR has a colour touch-screen and Bluetooth support. All of the radios except the FTM-3200DR, FTM-3207ER and FTM-7250DR can also tell other digital users their location if the GPS is enabled and location services is turned on, or if a position is manually entered. The FT-1DR, FT-2DR, FT-3DR, FTM-100DR and FTM-400XDR are 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 callsign 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. HF: There 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. Great Northern Boaters’ Net on 3870 KHz commences April 15 at 0630 Alaska time (0730 PDT) with a roll call at 0700 Alaska time (0800 PDT). Bill VE7WSM has taken the net over since Barbara VA7KLU has retired. Northwest Boaters’ Net 3865 KHz at 0830 Pacific time. NOTE… the info about the Great Northern Boaters’ Net on this site is out of date. West Coast Boaters’ Net 3860 KHz (formerly 3855 KHz) at 1800 PDT, usually June to the end of September, for stations unable to access the Island Trunk System. |
| Island Trunk System: The Island Trunk System (ITS) is a system of linked repeaters running the length of Vancouver Island. VITS is an open system and all boaters that are amateur radio operators are welcome to utilize it to have a QSO at any time. All repeaters from Courtenay south use a tone of 141.3 Hz. The ones north of there are just carrier access. The official webpage for the VITS is islandtrunksystem.org. You can view a diagram of the ITS there. Most repeaters on the VITS are normally connected to the trunk all of the time. The Cowichan Amateur Radio Society maintains the southern-most repeaters on the ITS above Chemainus, and there are several repeaters maintained by the Nanaimo Amateur Radio Association, two of which are on the ITS. Click on the map below for details of the Newcastle Ridge Building Replacement Appeal. Click on map for larger view. The BC Boaters Net will be commencing on June 14 2019. |
