ROC(M) Marine Radio Course

I completed teaching the ROC(M) course 02 March to the Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue – RCM-SAR – group in Sicamous.  Twenty one took and passed the course that is provided by the Canadian Power and Sail Squadrons.  We are coming closer to providing monitoring on Channel 16 for boaters on the Shuswap and Mara Lakes with VHF radios in their boats.  While cell phone service is improving on the lake, cell phone batteries can die and a cell phone call is only to one person whereas a distress call on a VHF radio is heard by all listening.  All the more reason to put a VHF radio in your boat.

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1983: Early Reception of Shuttle: newspaper article by Hans VE7BOD

OWEN GARRIOT W5LFL, SPACE-SHUTTLE COLUMBIA. “The whole family went outside on December 1, 1983 at approximately 6:30 local time to look in to the clear night sky to see if we could spot the Space-Shuttle Columbia. Being an amateur radio operator or (commonly known as a Ham) I took my 2 meter FM handheld transceiver with me. And to my surprise, heard somebody calling, “This is W5LFL in the Space-Shuttle Columbia calling the West Coast of North America.” My wife standing a little further away said, “who’s that ham driving around Salmon Arm?” Now this resulted in some head-shaking and lecturing by the ham operator standing next to her.

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