ham radio nets

[Randy and Mary Davison]

Some of you who are planning longer trips might be interested in the daily amateur radio marine nets that are active in our area.  Cruising hams check in and report on conditions from Anacortes to Alaska and arrange to meet up on occasion.  You'll hear weather conditions and often how crowded anchorages are.  I'm a regular check in when out as I have a lot of friends on both nets.

Here are the details:

Morning

The Great Norther Boaters Net starts at 8 am pdt on 3870 khz and is run by Barbara, VE7KLU in Sidney, BC.  At 8:30 am net control switches to Darlene, KL0YC on 7285 khz.  Darlene and her husband caretake a lodge in Misty Fiords National Monument SE of Ketchikan.

Evening

The West Coast Boaters Net starts at 6 pm pdt on 3855 khz and is run by Ivan, VE7IVN from Cape Beall lighthouse at the entrance to Barkley Sound.  Ivan is one of the lighthouse keepers there.

Both nets are lower sideband SSB so you'll need a receiver that's capable of Single Side Band reception and can tune the ham bands.

[Ray & Sandy Erps]

Randy,

My dad was a ham and I remember as a kid sitting with him in the evenings while he would talk to different people.

I have a little portable Grundig radio that has four bands, AM/FM/SWI and SW2.  

Is that radio capable of receiving the required frequencies?  I'm not familiar enough with the nomenclature of the different frequencies to know, but if it works, it would be fun to bring along and listen in.  

SWI is labeled 3.2 to 7.6 MHZ
SW2 is labeled 9.2-22.0 MHZ

I wasn't sure if 3870 KHZ was equivalent to 3.87 MHZ.

[Randy and Mary Davison]

Ray,

Your model Grundig covers the frequencies but won't demodulate single sideband.  It will sound like donald duck.  The lowest cost receiver I know of that recieves ssb is the Grundig Yacht Boy 400 PE.  These can be had for about $150 on the web.  It's a good overall receiver for AM/FM and short wave.  SSB also requires very fine tuning control and it does that as well.

I recommeded one of these to Fulvio before he headed to Mexico.  He had poor results until he realized that the various on-board inverters were interfering.  His primary use was with his laptop for weatherfax reception.  This is an excellent application by the way for extended cruises.  I count on the hf weatherfax charts to help with weather forecasting.  Weatherfax is also transmitted by SSB.  

Just to capture this for other possible readers - there are many sources of hf radio noise that might be unexpected.  First of all, it's impossible to hear high frequency radio at any marina as all the chargers generate hash.  In addition, on Gorbash, the following are noise sources -
The Xantrex charter, all three small inverters on board, all the laptop chargers (we usually have three notebooks on board, one for nav and two for work and play!), the fluorescent lights in the head and over the galley, and finally, the Cold Machine - it actually coverts 12V into 110 to run the compressor.

More than you probably wanted to know!