Communications Tools

Participants' Meeting - A meeting for all hands will be held during the September 2010 Governing Board meeting in Bellevue, WA. We will hand out the "goodies bag", identification badges, cruise logoed items, and will discuss the logistics of the cruise. The meeting will be held on Saturday, 04 September 2010, 1500-1700, in the <to be determined> Room.

Skipper's Meeting - A dockside briefing of the day's activities, routes, and general information will be held at 0800 on the docks every morning of the cruise except for Monday, 05 September 2010.

Hard Copy - During the cruise, the flotilla's daily newsletter Nor'westing 2010 Water Magic will be available by 0800 each morning. Copies from the 2005 cruise can be found here.

Wireless Phone Service - The cruise area is well served by CDMA (Verizon and others) and GSM (T-Mobile and AT&T) cell phone service providers. Note that roaming into British Columbia may require that you notify your cell phone provider. Also, roaming charges while BC can exceed 70 cents per minute.

High Speed Wireless (WiFi) Internet - Each of the marinas in the cruise have for-pay WiFi services provided by Broadband Xpress. For more information, contact www.bbxpress.net.

Dockmaster/Moorage Assignments - Dock assignments are given by the Tacoma SPS Docking Crew by hailing "Nor'westing Dockmaster" on VHF channel 78.

Ham Radio Net
Are you a ham radio fan and have a 2-meter radio? Then please bring it along. We will most likely have an evening net, to make plans and rehash events, and also use it for general chit chat. This is something you can’t do on Marine VHF. The boats will always be in VHF range and our hope is to use it for communicating sights, photo ops, and general comments while the boats are on the water.

A 2 Meter simplex frequency will be chosen and announced at the Participant's Meeting before the cruise departs.

Skippers… If you are not ham operators please do ask your ham guests to bring their radios. This should be a fun addition to the cruise. There is a spot on the registration form to indicate ham callsigns.

 Contact the Ham Radio Coordinator for more information.