This Vantage Pro2 in Pender Harbour, British Columbia, Canada has quite a view. With WeatherLinkIP, it helps keep boaters in the area aware of current weather. That’s Pender Harbor and Texada Island in the distance. Unseen are the Straits of Malaspina right beside the Island and running north toward Alaska and south toward the San Juan Islands just below the Canada /US border.

Stewart Harrowing lives in, arguably, paradise. His home on the western edge of Canada is surrounded by gorgeous tree-studded islands and the blue Pacific. He is also an amateur radio operator up there in Pender Harbour, British Columbia, Canada. He helps run a VHF radio net, BC Boaters Net, with help from, of course, his Vantage Pro2.

“BC Boaters Net runs daily from June to September. Its purpose is to maintain contact with ham boaters cruising the coast from the San Juan Islands in the US to the Northern end of Vancouver Island. For transmission, we utilize a volunteer-operated repeater trunk system which joins repeaters from one end of the Island to the other. We keep track of boat movements and keep them appraised of local harbor area weather conditions as they travel and also enable them to maintain contact with family ashore in case of emergency. The system also allows us to assist in shipboard emergencies , if and when they occur. We also maintain a database of more than 600 boats.

“An important part of this program is the WeatherLinkIP software installed here in Pender Harbour with real time information and all ham US and Canadian boaters in the area have been made aware of the URL.”

“At the peak of the season, we have approximately 30-35 boats checking in daily and we talk to them through net controllers and keep track of them and advise them of local harbor area weather conditions, hazards, notices etc. This helps them with their travel plans. The URL is also bookmarked and displayed in the local Harbour Authority Office in Pender Harbour, so incoming boaters can look at it there. It has been well received as an additional local tool on a dangerous part of the BC coast.”

What a great use of WeatherLinkIP, Stew. Oh, and “73!” (Stew taught us that - “73” is ham talk for “best regards!”)

(Speaking of WeatherLinkIP, Jesse Ferrell added an in-depth review of the newest Davis product to his blog . "Part 2" of Jesse's review does a good job of summarizing WeatherLinkIP's features, and gives it a nice "thumbs up." Jesse is especially pleased with the fact that WeatherLinkIP did such a good job of transmitting wind gust data because the data packets are so frequent.)

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