Yacht Club Honors Winlink Sysop

The San Diego Yacht Club (SDYC), like most volunteer organizations, recognizes outstanding contributions by members that significantly advance the interests of the club and its members. One would expect that such honors would be bestowed on sailors that win or organize major sail boat races, complete a circumnavigation or serve for extended periods as Commodore or Committee members.

At the opening of the sailing season for 2005 the SDYC had its opening day celebration. As part of the activities several awards were given for meritorious performance. One award, not presented every year, is called the "Burgee of Merit" and is given to a member that has performed outstanding and significant volunteer duties.

It is really unusual for a yacht club, which obviously is sailor-oriented, to consider making such an award for efforts that appear outside specific yachting activities. This year the San Diego Yacht Club made such an exception. It honored Rod (W6IM) because of his contribution to the San Diego Yacht Club Amateur Radio Group. Rod is an amateur radio operator who, as the System Operator (Sysop), manages the club-sponsored Winlink Participating Mail Box Office (PMBO).    

In particular, the award was based on the success and worldwide usefulness of the Winlink system for boaters. The award to Rod (W6IM) was influenced by the many messages from thankful Winlink users for the support provided by the Club's PMBO. The Board of Directors at San Diego Yacht Club were able to put that in perspective and recognized the contribution made to the local and international yachting community.

The Commodore of SDYC presenting the award to Rod (W6IM)

Details of the San Diego Yacht Club Winlink PMBO managed by Rod (W6IM) are:

*      Station Location: San Diego CA. (Visit the San Diego Yacht Club WebSite at http://www.sdyc.org/)
 

*      Station Information: W6IM is operated by the San Diego Yacht Club Amateur Radio Group (ARG.) The ARG provides               communication for yacht races and other Club functions, conducts Amateur Radio license classes, and provides for both Amateur and Marine HF and VHF radio communication.
 

*      Equipment: consists of 2 meter, 1.25 meter, and 70 cm voice transceivers; 2 meter Packet; ICOM IC736 and IC756 HF transceivers; and a FURUNO 1501 Marine SSB transceiver.
 

*      The Winlink 2000 setup consists of: the ICOM IC736 which utilizes the Pactor I, II and III protocols. Antennas used are a multi-band horizontal dipole on 30 and 40 meters plus a three element beam on 20 meters. The beam is typically pointed down the Baja California peninsula at 135 degrees (M). The computer system is an AMD K7 700 MHz T-Bird CPU, 128MB RAM, 15GB HDD, running Windows 2000.
 

*      Scan Center frequencies are: Dipole - 7073.9 & 10141.2 (P3) Beam (135 deg) - 14073.9 & 14098.7 (P3). [P3 = Pactor III]
 

The California Yacht Club (CYC), also on the US West Coast, is another yacht club to sponsor a Winlink PMBO. It has, like most major clubs, reciprocal arrangements with many other yachting clubs - worldwide. The objective of such arrangements is to provide mutual support to cruisers from locally and internationally affiliated clubs. Like SDYC, CYC has provided such support to many cruisers by providing access to its Winlink PMBO to all on the high seas that have the appropriate amateur radio qualifications. With many Australian yachtsmen visiting the US West Coast and, conversely, many of their club members circumnavigating or cruising the South Pacific with the objective of also visiting Australia, CYC had sought the reciprocal support of Australian yachting organizations by them sponsoring a Winlink PMBO in Australia.

Accordingly, CYC on 16 March 2004, sent a letter to about 17 prominent Australian yachting clubs and associations inviting them to consider sponsoring a Winlink PMBO. (Click on link at the foot of this page for Aussie Yacht Clubs to view the list of clubs contacted). Strangely, it appears that not a SINGLE reply was received. It is uncharacteristically for Australian clubs to not even send acknowledgement of receipt let alone a “No-Thank-You” letter. The letter sent reads as follows:

QUOTE

March 16, 2004

Dear Fellow Commodore,

I am writing regarding the Winlink amateur radio service. This system allows sending and receiving electronic mail by high frequency radio.  It is also an excellent means of obtaining weather information and filing position reports for the cruising community. The California Yacht Club established a Winlink station as a public service for the yachting community about one year ago. This system is available to licensed amateur radio users and is free of charge.

With only 42 stations with which to serve the entire globe, the Winlink system handles approximately 30,000 high frequency radio communications and nearly 250,000 international e-mails every month. There are many documented cases where life and property have been preserved; either by preventing emergencies or providing assistance when and where it was needed.

One of the areas of greatest need for additional Winlink coverage is northeast Australia. With the ACA recently lifting the restriction on amateur radio operators passing-on Third Party Communications, the time to act is now. A station on the West Coast of Australia has already begun operations. 

We would like to encourage your yacht club to host a Winlink amateur radio station. It would compliment the two Winlink radio stations that are already operating out of New Zealand and the single station in Thailand. An Australian station, somewhere along the northeast would significantly improve radio coverage in the South Pacific and the archipelago nations to Australia’s north and east.

If there is interest by your club in providing this much needed service to the local and international yachting community, CYC - your sister club, and our Radio Amateur Group will be eager to assist you with additional information about the set up and operation of your station.

Thank you for considering this request, I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,

(Signed)

Craig Leeds
Commodore California Yacht Club

UNQUOTE

Details of the California Yacht Club Winlink PMBO managed by Scott (N6ABC) are as follows:

*       Station Information: As a way to assist all amateur radio operators, The California Yacht Club asked to become a Winlink 2000 PMBO in order to provide email, position reporting and weather services to all Amateur Radio operators, and especially, the boating community. The California Yacht Club's Radio Amateur Group (RAG), is very active in sailboat racing events such as the recent Star World Championship Regatta, and has an active link in the Southern California Disaster Communication Network in Los Angeles County. It also had the desire to sponsor a Winlink 2000 participating station.
 

*       Operator: Scott (N6ABC), the Winlink 2000 PMBO system operator for K6CYC has used amateur radio extensively in the four (4) Pacific Ocean crossings he has made since 1976. As associate members of the Seven Seas Cruising Association since 1996, Scott and his wife Cindy helped sail a 47’ Catamaran from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico to Hiva Oa in the Marquises Islands. Scott has been a member of the California Yacht Club since 1975.
 

*       Radio Amateur Club: The current Radio Amateur Group President at CYC is Sandy (N6TFO). Sandy is an active amateur on both the Maritime Mobile Service Net and the Pacific Seafarers’ Net. Sandy is also serving as the Scott’s back up system operator (Sysop) for the Winlink 2000 PMBO.
 

*       Equipment: includes a Kenwood 570D, and our 4 element yagi will provide support on 20 and 15 meters by being directed towards the South Pacific from May until October, and Mexico from November until April. Our Cushcraft R8 Vertical Antenna will be used to provide omni-directional support on 17, 30 and 40 meters.
 

*       K6CYC Scan Center Frequencies: 7069.9 10123.9 10143.7# - Omni-directional and 21068.9 21096.2 (P3) 14068.9 14102.7(P3) - Beaming South Pacific. (P3 indicates Pactor III).
 

Now that Australia has three functioning PMBOs and one under development there is no longer the urgent need for more Winlink PMBOs in Australia. However, it is Winlink policy to have some redundancy built into the network to compensate for station failures, indisposed Sysops or weather-related transmission problems.

Therefore, given that both the San Diego Yacht Club and the California Yacht Club have recognized and supported the local and international cruising community, it is hoped that sooner or later a major Australian Yachting Club will reciprocate and similarly recognize the contribution that can be made by members in operating a club-sponsored Winlink PMBO..

AUSSIEWINLINK
25 April 2005