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Lexington - Captain Bob: 3/4/17. 4 degrees 37 minutes south 94 degrees 12 minutes west



Tonight I got a VHF radio call from a boat that I had met up with at Shelter Bay Marina just as you enter the Panama Canal prepping area They were going to town one day and offered to pick an item up for me. We have a device called AIS which is automatic identification system. We broadcast and receive a VHF signal that shows our boat position on the chart plotter of boats within range. They saw us on their system and called out. They have joined our SSB (single side band radio) radio roll call twice a day. It is always good to know someone else is out there in the dark of the night. In some places of the world you would turn it off so pirates could not see you.

For your information I will go over our communication capacity. We have VHF radio. VHF stands for very high frequency. It is for short range akin to line of sight which is about 25 miles for ship to ship on the sea. Some facilities like the coast guard and Bermuda radio have much greater range because they have tall antennas which increases their "line of sight". Most all boats would have VHF. Our VHF has an emergency button that puts out an Mayday signal that will give your location if it is connected to your GPS (global positioning system)

We also have SSB, single side band, which is more like HAM radio. It is for much greater range. This is the type of radio signal that bounces off the ionosphere. It also has the emergency button that would send a mayday and your position. There are stations that broadcast weather voice reports at specified times. There are weather faxes that are broadcast on schedules. You need a device to translate the fax signal into something you can read. For us this is a Pactor Modem. There are also computer programs to do the same. If you have a HAM license you can talk around the world to other Hams.

We have an iridium satellite phone for voice and data. We mainly use the data. I will send this message using the satellite phone system. I am typing on my iPad. The iPad is connected by wifi to the satellite phone network. I will send it using the satellite phone to a service that will send it as an email to a services that will post it.

So we are in pretty good shape. We do not have internet although it can be had for a much bigger price than we would want to pay.

At times I think I could do well with a lot less. One night we were at a very nice restaurant with internet service on wifi and 3 of 5 were on their devices. The excuse is that at that area we had very limited and slow internet so the were taking the opportunity at hand and I am not known for my dinner conversation expertise and I tell bad jokes

I will close with a photo of dawn

Best wishes to all from Lexington. I hope your day is productive and enjoyable
Bob



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