Nov 08: Announcement and documents from Steve Bachop, Director of Management Services and Programs, regarding WorkSafeBC and liability coverage for all public safety lifeline (PSL) volunteers. Please note, although the ESW WCB Liability document has a SAR “flavour”, it is relevant for all PSL disciplines.
November 23, 2008
*** PERCS Important Notice ***
Effective immediately, VE7VIS RMS Pactor Gateway has been replaced by VE7RAH
VE7RAH is online now and will be located at Canadian Forces Base, Esquimalt in December.
It will be hosted by the Base Amateur Radio Service.
November 17, 2008
New BETA version of Airmail for Vista.... Caution It may overwrite your setting when installed.
November 4,5,6 2008
BC Government's TEAMS Exercise 08
This exercise was on November 4,5,6 2008.
It envoled Government employee's in all 6 of BC PREOC's including the PECC
This exercise also included 18 "Emergency Radio Volunteers"
September 23, 2008
"Tophat 2008"
Saturday, Oct 18 2008 0800 - 1200 hrs
September 16, 2008
New HF Digital Protocol to Debut at ARRL/TAPR Digital Communications Conference in Chicago, September 26-28.
WINMOR, an HF digital protocol designed for use with the Winlink 2000 network
September 4, 2008
Here is one to keep an eye on. Will it receive below noise threshold? Check to Winlink Website at www.winlink.org
New HF Digital Protocol to Debut at DCC
WINMOR, an HF digital protocol designed for use with the Winlink 2000 network, will be unveiled at the upcoming ARRL/TAPR Digital Communications Conference in Chicago, September 26-28.
According to developer Rick Muething, KN6KB, WINMOR will effectively eliminate the need for external PACTOR hardware. "This new protocol is implemented through a Windows application that uses a computer sound card for all the analog-to-digital conversion. It provides error-free ARQ transfers within 200, 500 or 2000 Hz bandwidths," Muething said. In terms of throughput, Muething said that the 200-Hz WINMOR mode appears to equal the performance of PACTOR I. In WINMOR's 2000 Hz mode, its performance rivals PACTOR III. "WINMOR is a work in progress," Muething said. "We won't be pulling the wraps off a finished application at the conference. We're close, though. I'd like to see on-air testing in 3 to 6 months."
Conference information and registration is available online or by telephone at 972-671-8277. Rick Muething's presentation paper,
WINMOR. . . A Sound Card ARQ Mode for Winlink HF Digital Messaging, is included in the conference proceedings.
August 1, 2008
The ability to turn on and turn off your "Whitelist/Blacklist" has been removed!
You will need to have the Domains and email address's in your "Whitelist" to receive email
and the domains and email address's that you DONOT want to receive email from in you "Blacklist"
For info on how to change your "Whitelist/Blacklist" go to the following link
August 8-10 2008
RAC AGM & Winnipeg Hamfest 8-10 August 2008
http://www.mts.net/~warc/hamfest/
July 23, 2008
RMS Pactor VE6DXI back online
July 22, 2008
RMS Pactor VE6DXI offline today till 5:15 pst. today due to Hign Thunder storn activity
July 18,2008
PEP's RMS Pactor station VE7VIS - now online at temporary location in Sooke BC
scanning all 4 frequencies
PEP Headquarter - moving to new location
VE7PEP/VE7VIS Offline as of July 17,2008
New address:
Gateway Park
Block A - Suite 200
2261 Keating Cross Rd.
Saanichton. B.C. V8M 2A5
WL2K bulletin
IMPORTANT - ATTENTION ALL WINLINK 2000 USERS - IMPORTANT
Beginning August 1, 2008 all users with amateur callsigns will
have their whitelist feature activated. Using the whitelist will
no longer be optional.
Any message to a user from Internet must be from a sender's
address or domain name that is in the recepient's whitelist or
else the sender must include the character sequence //WL2K in the
subject line of the message.
If //WL2K is found in the subject
line the message will be accepted and forwarded to all of the
recepients of the message with amateur callsigns.
If the sender is not in the recepient's whitelist and no //WL2K
is found in the subject line the message will be rejected with a
reference to the Winlink WEB page where instructions for sending
WL2K messages will be found. Whitelist notices will no longer be
created and forwarded to recepients.
There will be certain exceptions. Messages from the saildocs.com,
sailmail.com, and mwxc.com domains will be accepted unconditionally
except where a recepient specifically blocks the domain name in
their whitelist.
"EXERCISE TOPHAT" is an amateur radio emergency communications exercise incorporating the major population
centres in the Lower Mainland from Hope to the Sunshine Coast and Howe Sound. It is being planned for the
morning on Saturday, October 18, 2008 (est. 0800 - 1200hrs).
The exercise scenario is a severe weather event that impacts regional infrastructure with cascading effects.
The purpose of the exercise is to test the amateur radio response capability and capacity within each community
and to link communities and other emergency management entities with an amateur radio station, following such an event.
The exercise objectives are to test the regional amateur radio communications plan for southwestern BC, with
specific objectives to:
- Evaluate documentation flow and accuracy
- Test communications within a municipality (EOC with possible ESS facility, mobile comms vehicle, hospital, works yard and/or other key facility)
- Test communications between participating neighbouring municipalities and organizations (simplex links to abutting municipalities)
- Test communications within the southwest region (PREOC, Health facility - TBA, NGOs - TBA, Utilities - TBA)
- Test communications with other PREOCS (municipalities to all PREOCs, PREOC to PREOC/PEP HQ)
- Other objectives involve Alberta contacts, contacts within Canada and a contact with an American station.
This will be a training activity - not a competition among amateur radio teams as was the case of the previous two "TOPHAT" exercises. The exercise planning team is in discussions
with the regional ESS Director's committee about the possibility of combining a proposed group lodging exercise with Tophat '08; this will be announced if it evolves.
This is a regional comms exercise coordinated by a regional planning team of communicators. This not an official PEP exercise, but is being endorsed and supported by the PEP Southwest Regional Office.
The exercise planning team would like the opportunity to exercise all key communicators and is asking local Emergency Program Coordinators to evaluate or help local teams to arrange for non-operator evaluators. If Emergency Program Coordinators have not yet discussed Tophat participation with your local Emergency Communications Team, please make this contact.
Further information will be forthcoming as exercise planning proceeds.
Emergency Communicators contact: Onno Onneken, VE7ONN, PERCS Regional Rep, Southwest ve7onn@dccnet.com
Emergency Program Coordinators contact: Mike Andrews, VE7MPA, PEP Southwest Regional Manager mike.andrews@gov.bc.ca