Scuttlebutt - The WRCC Newsletter

First, I'd like to extend a very special welcome to all our new members! Second, I'd like to thank all those members who voted to allow me to be your Commodore this year. Also, thanks for all the good wishes I received at last month's picnic and the many emails of congratulations. I'm honored.

We had a great turnout at Wickham Park for our annual get-together on December 7th. It was a bit on the cool side, but standing in the Florida sun cured that! It was good to see all those members that we only 'hear' throughout the year.

For those of you who may not know me, I've been a member since 1989, was live-aboard for about six years and now live ashore in New Port Richey, FL. I am also the club's webmaster, maintaining our web site and keeping it up-to-date. Please visit the web site often. I hear a lot of questions asked on the Waterway Net that can be easily answered on the web site. On Fridays, I am net controller for the Computer Net, which follows the Waterway Net.

I would like to congratulate Peter, K3PKC for being elected Vice Commodore for the second year in a row. Also, congrats to Tom, K8TF for becoming our new Rear Commodore. Of course, I'm looking forward to working with our Secretary/Treasurer, Jeanie, N4WFM, our Weather Coordinator, Dave, N4NVI, Fleet Captain, Chuck, ND7K and all the Net Controllers, Weather Reporters and everyone who helps keep our Net as, I believe, the best run net on ham radio.


Home Club Info Net Format Net Procedures News & Events Scuttlebutt CW Net Tech Corner Discussion Board Links	Winter 2009 Excerpts from the previous Scuttlebutt issue. Commodore: Bill Boyle - N4UMS First, I'd like to extend a very special welcome to all our new members! Second, I'd like to thank all those members who voted to allow me to be your Commodore this year. Also, thanks for all the good wishes I received at last month's picnic and the many emails of congratulations. I'm honored. We had a great turnout at Wickham Park for our annual get-together on December 7th. It was a bit on the cool side, but standing in the Florida sun cured that! It was good to see all those members that we only 'hear' throughout the year. For those of you who may not know me, I've been a member since 1989, was live-aboard for about six years and now live ashore in New Port Richey, FL. I am also the club's webmaster, maintaining our web site and keeping it up-to-date. Please visit the web site often. I hear a lot of questions asked on the Waterway Net that can be easily answered on the web site. On Fridays, I am net controller for the Computer Net, which follows the Waterway Net. I would like to congratulate Peter, K3PKC for being elected Vice Commodore for the second year in a row. Also, congrats to Tom, K8TF for becoming our new Rear Commodore. Of course, I'm looking forward to working with our Secretary/Treasurer, Jeanie, N4WFM, our Weather Coordinator, Dave, N4NVI, Fleet Captain, Chuck, ND7K and all the Net Controllers, Weather Reporters and everyone who helps keep our Net as, I believe, the best run net on ham radio. If any of you would like to volunteer to help out with weather reports, position reporting, relays, etc., let me know. We are constantly recruiting members for these positions as our regular reporters need time off, either for vacations, cruising or other personal needs. Here's to a great year! Bill, N4UMS - Commodore CW Net: Sam - N4UAU Participation in the CW Net continues to be strong with some 15 to 20 brass pounders daily. Although CW is considered by some to be obsolete, the WRCC CW Net is definitely not. Our net embraces the latest in computer and Internet technology to make our Ham experience more rewarding. For several years we have had a Yahoo Group which lets any member email the entire membership. This group sees many lively discussions! New this year to the Net's communication tool bag is Skype. If you are not familiar with Skype you should check it out. This free program allows you to place video phone calls to any computer in the world for free. Skype also has a chat feature that we use extensively during the Net to enhance communication. As with phone mode, the chat mode supports group chats. Using chats we can pass a lot more information while listening to the CW Net. Chat mode allows us to relay check ins; often a station cannot hear the net control but net control can hear him. A Skype message will alert the station it is his turn to QRU (send his traffic). With Skype Chat you can send files to select members or the entire group. This happens much faster than email as it is peer to peer. Perfect for 'Hey, I just saw this in the propagation newsletter' with the quote pasted to the chat message or appropriate file forwarded. Another program in use on the CW Net is the AG4ND CW terminal. While there are a number of CW terminal programs, Forrest's stands out. With reasonably good band conditions and CW signals it will get 100% copy. Keyboard driven, of course, it has 6 large memories to store canned transmissions. A really cool feature is the DSP filter software. The program displays the signals in the pass band in real time and you can see what it looks like going into the filter or coming out of the filter. You can adjust the band width, the roll off, amount of noise suppression and center frequency of the filter. Forrest's program works under Windows or Linux. Contact Forrest for download information. Many of our CW Net members have more than one computer and some have put Ubuntu Linux on one. Ubuntu is a free (open source) GUI operating system. From the user's point of view it operates very much like Windows. You can buy a CD or even get a free one. Ubuntu is a lot more than just an operating system. The CD comes with just about everything you need on a computer. It has Open Office: an office suite with word processor, spreadsheet, database, presentation, drawing and math programs. It comes with the Firefox browser and you can download Opera for it (but not IE), it has video and audio programs, games, and much much more. Skype works on it as well. Open Office programs (which run on Windows also) will read files created by other programs. For instance it reads Word for Windows, Word Perfect etc. This makes it far more flexible than the Microsoft programs which only read their own files. Ubuntu is easy to install; just put the CD in your computer and load it up. If you want to try it but don't want to change your system, you can operate the computer from the CD and your existing operating system is not affected. If you like it you can load it later and opt to make it the only operating system or make your PC a dual boot system to either Windows or Linux. Ubuntu is a good way to make an obsolete computer useful again at NO COST. This paragraph was NOT approved by Bill Gates :-) CW maybe an old mode of communication, but the Waterway CW Net is state of the art! Download Forrest's program and come visit us on 7050 at 7AM. Comments from Sick Bay: Dr. Jim - K4TCV How good is that CPR card in your pocket? If your companion suddenly collapses, are you capable of providing emergency intervention? Because I have taught resuscitation for over 40 years, I was asked to look at the medical and legal aspects of a tragic happening. It was the case of a young boy, age 6 or 7, who choked to death on a wedge of tangerine. It lodged in his voice box so tightly that neither his nurse-maid nor his mother was able to dislodge it. Fire/rescue paramedics, called via 911, were at the side of the child in 6 minutes. The paramedics looked deep in the throat with their instruments and retrieved the offending fruit, but it was too late. It was terribly disturbing to all concerned and a major loss to the boy's parents. The young nurse-maid had taken a basic CPR course about two years prior to the event, and had the certifying card in her purse. Was she an effective resuscitator? Probably not. She had never had the opportunity to work on a resuscitation team in a real life situation. Although the outcome may have not been any different, a more experienced resuscitator might have achieved a happier outcome. There is a wide gap between what the public expects in the way of proficiency in resuscitation and the meager ability of an inexperienced person who has only taken a one day CPR course. The American Heart Association provides teaching of a variety of courses in resuscitation (CPR). These range from the most basic three-hour course to the most advanced type for doctors and nurses. These latter courses include reading of EKGs and selection of medications, both for adults, infants and children. NO course guarantees the performance of the student who passes, only that the student holds a course certificate indicating that they have achieved certain standards of learning and classroom performance. Most of us boaters are not professionals in the medical field, but many want to be skilled in emergency interventions if the need arises. I urge you to check out the list of courses available at the American Heart Assn. web site, and take the most advanced course for which you may qualify. Don't expect the course to turn you into an experienced resuscitator, only recognize that by taking and passing the course, and getting the CPR Card, you will have an edge up on being familiar with the problems of airway management, artificial ventilation, and artificial circulation should the emergency present itself. Yes, and even pacemakers and automatic defibrillators (AEDs). Sudden respiratory or circulatory arrest from which the victim cannot recover except by another person's intervention is a challenge even to the experts. The more one does it the better one gets. What the Heart Assn. courses do for you (yes, even the 3-hour and 7-hour courses) is that you learn the steps in a thought process required, so you may know the sequence of decisions you will have to make if you hope to make a difference. Some of these questions are: How do I recognize when another person is in dire distress? If the heart continues to beat but the person is totally choked up, how long before they are irreversibly damaged? (Answer: 15-20 minutes.) If there is a cardiac arrest and there is no intervention, how long before the victim is irreversibly damaged? (Answer: 3-5 minutes.) What do I do first? What do I do second? What do I do next? How do I open an airway? In cardiac arrest and cardiac massage, how much ventilation is needed? Is there a legal liability if I try to help?* In any of a variety of geographic locations, how do I summon professional help, paramedics, Coast Guard etc.? How soon can I expect the professionals to arrive? A good course should answer most of these questions. Here is the URL for the Heart Association Courses: http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=3011764 Click on "TRAINING COURSES" and then choose either "Workplace" or "Professional" (Take a look at both.) * In Florida, if you are merely acting as a motivated bystander trying to help, you are generally protected by the Florida Good Samaritan Act. If you are working as a doctor, nurse, EMT or Paramedic you are held to professional standards. Dr. Jim is a long-standing member of the American Heart Association and is a past-President of the Miami Chapter. Sunshine: Debbie Lerner - KD4GRR The following members or their families have received cards or flowers from the Sunshine Fund recently. OCTOBER Jean Freeman KC4BGQ Illness NOVEMBER Anita Martinec WZ4U Hospitalized DECEMBER Jean Freeman KC4BGQ Silent Key Brian Kelly KG4KBS Silent Key The Sunshine fund is not funded through your dues, but is supported by donations collected over the year. If you are aware of a club member in need of some Sunshine, please contact me via phone (correct in the roster), email (correct in the Roster), or sunshine@waterwayradio.net. Please provide me with as much information as possible and a point of contact. This especially holds true if someone is in the hospital. When you receive flowers, please let me know, so I can confirm they were received. I want to thank the members of the WRCC for your support. Debbie Lerner, KD4GRR, Sunshine Fund Chairman Jean Freeman, KC4BGQ - SK: Jean Freeman passed away peacefully Friday, November 21, 2008 after a brief battle with cancer. She was born in Medford, MA, on December 22, 1929. Jean was a Worthy Advisor for the Rainbow Girls and attended Kathleen Dell Secretarial School where she was named Girl of the Year in 1949. Jean and her late husband, Phillip W. Freeman, were married for 55 years. She was a loving mother of two daughters. She enjoyed working as a Church Secretary in Red Bank, NJ for ten years. When Jean and her husband retired in 1978, they lived aboard their 41 Morgan sailboat, FREEDOM, for five years and sailed from Maine to the Bahamas. They were Captain and First Mate on several charter cruises with the FREEDOM and also delivered many boats from FL to NJ. Jean and Phil settled in Satellite Beach in 1980 where she was an active member of the East Coast Sailing Association. Jean was an amateur radio operator and served as a weather reporter and "Sunshine Lady" on the Waterway Radio and Cruising Club. For the past ten years, Jean was the Area Director for North Waterway Estates. She was also active at Trinity Presbyterian Church. Her love of flowers and gardening gave her great pleasure. Family and friends were very important to Jean and she was always willing to help others. She was known and loved for her high energy, enthusiasm and kindness. Jean is survived by her daughter, Linda Wood and son- in-law, Richard Wood of NJ; daughter, Cynthia Engstrom and son-in-law, Michael Engstrom of MS; two granddaughters, Sarah Rose Wood of MA and Dorothea Jean Wood of Satellite Beach; her sister-in- law, Janet McCollum and husband, Tom McCollum of FL, and many cherished friends. Reprinted from Florida Today. WRCC Net Weather: Dave - N4NVI Tom K4WJC and Dave N4NVI with Tim Rulon WA2KQD and Martin Nelson KJ4MCN from NOAA. We have had a busy year at the WRCC "Weather Department," planning, implementing and training ourselves on the now "not so new" weather format. We have received many favorable comments from not only our members but from other cruisers and NOAA people who are familiar with our presentation. Having made only minor changes or modifications during the past year, we are now satisfied we have a very good format for our listeners. We were staffed with just 8-9 full time weather reporters (readers) during 2008. Over 75 hours of weather was transmitted during the year and each of us averaged 10 hours of weather and made ourselves available on average of 50 days during the year. Our only setback this year was losing our good friend and associate Jean Freeman, KC4BGQ. In terms of weather activity the year was busy as well. Here is the 2008 Tropical Weather Summary from the National Hurricane Center in Miami: "TROPICAL CYCLONE ACTIVITY DURING THE 2008 HURRICANE SEASON WAS ABOVE AVERAGE. SIXTEEN TROPICAL STORMS OCCURRED, OF WHICH 8 BECAME HURRICANES AND 5 STRENGTHENED INTO MAJOR HURRICANES. THESE NUMBERS ARE FAR ABOVE THE LONG TERM AVERAGES OF 11, 6, AND 2, RESPECTIVELY. IN TERMS OF THE ACCUMULATED CYCLONE ENERGY (ACE) INDEX, 2008 HAD 167% OF THE LONG-TERM MEDIAN ACE, ALMOST AS MUCH ACE AS 2006 AND 2007 COMBINED." Several NOAA facilities have told me that they seldom, if ever, receive any feedback from their forecasts. Therefore, effective January 1, we are implementing a simple weather gathering program. As part of the normal position reports received during our net, all vessels offshore will be asked to provide, in addition to their position, wind direction and speed, wave heights and any swell with height and direction of the swell. This offshore weather information will be sent to our Weather Coordinator who will immediately email the information to the appropriate Coastal Weather Office. At the present time the offices most interested are Jacksonville, Melbourne and Miami. With the information we provide these offices they will be able to verify the accuracy of their forecasts and make any needed corrections. This is all voluntary, of course, but I urge everyone to participate if you are able. In the months ahead I will monitor the use of the information and if it is not being utilized we'll discontinue taking these reports. Weather is a serious subject and we take our weather reporting seriously. However, ham radio and boating are fun and we admit to having enjoyed some fun events during 2008. Aside from giving our weather from the USS Yorktown in Charleston, WA4USN, we reported from the NWS office in Peachtree City, GA, WX4PTC, from Charleston, SC, WX4CHS and from Melbourne, FL, WX4MLB. This is not just fun for us but it also allows us to interact with other hams and members of the National Weather Service. Expect more of these events in 2009. Around the Waterways: The New Jersey Assembly has passed Bill No. A2326 which requires that any power boater operating in New Jersey waters after June 1, 2009 shall be in possession of a boat safety certificate. The bill requires NJ residents to complete an approved NJ boat safety course. An out of state resident or a resident of a foreign country who is 16 years of age or older and who will be in the state for less than 90 days, may operate a power boat in NJ without having completed a NJ safe boating course provided he or she has a certificate from a boat safety course approved by the National Association of Boating Law Administration or the US Coast Guard, a safety course substantially similar to the NJ course, or a course certificate issued by the state or country in which the person resides. If this passes the NJ Senate (S2111), we will need a safe boating certificate to travel through NJ after 7/1/09, whether our own states require it or not. Florida anchoring restrictions are once again in the forefront. After a positive outcome in the Marco Island case (in which local municipalities were found not to have authority to impose anchoring restrictions different from state law) the whole issue of cruisers' rights to anchor in Florida was turned over to Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission (FWC). The latest draft of their proposed legislation will give local government the right to regulate anchoring, even in the absence of a mooring field. Ahead of the pack, Hollywood now allows only 24-hour emergency anchoring. Dredging has been completed in Dawho River and Ashepoo-Coosaw Cutoff in South Carolina. The Ponce de Leon Cut (Mile 840-843) has also been dredged. If they keep this up, we won't have any shoals to warn you about (but we're not there yet). The Right Whale Ship Strike Reduction Rule became effective on December 9, 2008. From November to April the coastal waters between Altamaha Sound, GA, and Sebastian Inlet, FL, are used as calving grounds by the North Atlantic Right Whale. This is the world's only known calving ground for this species. Right Whales are the rarest whales in the world and are protected under law from disturbance or injury. The rule prohibits speeds in excess of 10 knots in the designated waters. A compliance guide is available at: http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/pdfs/shipstrike/compliance_guide.pdf Malaria in Great Exuma: The CDC received a confirmed report of one case of Malaria in March, 2008. They recommend anyone going there take chloroquine malaria preventive and avoid mosquito bites. See http://wwwn.cdc.gov/travel/contentMalariaBahamas07.aspx for complete information. (Thanks to Captain Marti KF4TRG for this info.) And finally...BEWARE!! The Florida Potty Police have been raising money in the area from New Smyrna to Haulover Canal on the east coast. Several cruisers have been stopped and inspected. One poor chap who came in from an offshore passage and had not yet closed his valves got a "welcome to Florida" in the amount of $250. Past Issues: Summer 2008 Spring 2008 Winter 2008 Fall 2007 Spring 2007 Winter 2007 Fall 2006 Summer 2006 Spring 2006 Winter 2006 Fall 2005 Summer 2005 Spring 2005 Winter 2005 Fall 2004 HOME \| CLUB INFO \| NET PROCEDURES \| NEWS & EVENTS \| SCUTTLEBUTT \| CW NET \| TECH CORNER \| LINKS Top

If any of you would like to volunteer to help out with weather reports, position reporting, relays, etc., let me know. We are constantly recruiting members for these positions as our regular reporters need time off, either for vacations, cruising or other personal needs.
Here's to a great year!

Participation in the CW Net continues to be strong with some 15 to 20 brass pounders daily. Although CW is considered by some to be obsolete, the WRCC CW Net is definitely not. Our net embraces the latest in computer and Internet technology to make our Ham experience more rewarding.

For several years we have had a Yahoo Group which lets any member email the entire membership. This group sees many lively discussions!

New this year to the Net's communication tool bag is Skype. If you are not familiar with Skype you should check it out. This free program allows you to place video phone calls to any computer in the world for free. Skype also has a chat feature that we use extensively during the Net to enhance communication. As with phone mode, the chat mode supports group chats. Using chats we can pass a lot more information while listening to the CW Net. Chat mode allows us to relay check ins; often a station cannot hear the net control but net control can hear him. A Skype message will alert the station it is his turn to QRU (send his traffic). With Skype Chat you can send files to select members or the entire group. This happens much faster than email as it is peer to peer. Perfect for 'Hey, I just saw this in the propagation newsletter' with the quote pasted to the chat message or appropriate file forwarded.

Another program in use on the CW Net is the AG4ND CW terminal. While there are a number of CW terminal programs, Forrest's stands out. With reasonably good band conditions and CW signals it will get 100% copy. Keyboard driven, of course, it has 6 large memories to store canned transmissions. A really cool feature is the DSP filter software. The program displays the signals in the pass band in real time and you can see what it looks like going into the filter or coming out of the filter. You can adjust the band width, the roll off, amount of noise suppression and center frequency of the filter. Forrest's program works under Windows or Linux. Contact Forrest for download information.

Many of our CW Net members have more than one computer and some have put Ubuntu Linux on one. Ubuntu is a free (open source) GUI operating system. From the user's point of view it operates very much like Windows. You can buy a CD or even get a free one. Ubuntu is a lot more than just an operating system. The CD comes with just about everything you need on a computer. It has Open Office: an office suite with word processor, spreadsheet, database, presentation, drawing and math programs. It comes with the Firefox browser and you can download Opera for it (but not IE), it has video and audio programs, games, and much much more. Skype works on it as well. Open Office programs (which run on Windows also) will read files created by other programs. For instance it reads Word for Windows, Word Perfect etc. This makes it far more flexible than the Microsoft programs which only read their own files. Ubuntu is easy to install; just put the CD in your computer and load it up. If you want to try it but don't want to change your system, you can operate the computer from the CD and your existing operating system is not affected. If you like it you can load it later and opt to make it the only operating system or make your PC a dual boot system to either Windows or Linux. Ubuntu is a good way to make an obsolete computer useful again at NO COST. This paragraph was NOT approved by Bill Gates :-)

CW maybe an old mode of communication, but the Waterway CW Net is state of the art! Download Forrest's program and come visit us on 7050 at 7AM.

How good is that CPR card in your pocket? If your companion suddenly collapses, are you capable of providing emergency intervention?

Because I have taught resuscitation for over 40 years, I was asked to look at the medical and legal aspects of a tragic happening. It was the case of a young boy, age 6 or 7, who choked to death on a wedge of tangerine. It lodged in his voice box so tightly that neither his nurse-maid nor his mother was able to dislodge it. Fire/rescue paramedics, called via 911, were at the side of the child in 6 minutes. The paramedics looked deep in the throat with their instruments and retrieved the offending fruit, but it was too late. It was terribly disturbing to all concerned and a major loss to the boy's parents.

The young nurse-maid had taken a basic CPR course about two years prior to the event, and had the certifying card in her purse. Was she an effective resuscitator? Probably not. She had never had the opportunity to work on a resuscitation team in a real life situation. Although the outcome may have not been any different, a more experienced resuscitator might have achieved a happier outcome.

There is a wide gap between what the public expects in the way of proficiency in resuscitation and the meager ability of an inexperienced person who has only taken a one day CPR course. The American Heart Association provides teaching of a variety of courses in resuscitation (CPR). These range from the most basic three-hour course to the most advanced type for doctors and nurses. These latter courses include reading of EKGs and selection of medications, both for adults, infants and children. NO course guarantees the performance of the student who passes, only that the student holds a course certificate indicating that they have achieved certain standards of learning and classroom performance.

Most of us boaters are not professionals in the medical field, but many want to be skilled in emergency interventions if the need arises. I urge you to check out the list of courses available at the American Heart Assn. web site, and take the most advanced course for which you may qualify. Don't expect the course to turn you into an experienced resuscitator, only recognize that by taking and passing the course, and getting the CPR Card, you will have an edge up on being familiar with the problems of airway management, artificial ventilation, and artificial circulation should the emergency present itself. Yes, and even pacemakers and automatic defibrillators (AEDs).

Sudden respiratory or circulatory arrest from which the victim cannot recover except by another person's intervention is a challenge even to the experts. The more one does it the better one gets. What the Heart Assn. courses do for you (yes, even the 3-hour and 7-hour courses) is that you learn the steps in a thought process required, so you may know the sequence of decisions you will have to make if you hope to make a difference. Some of these questions are:

How do I recognize when another person is in dire distress? If the heart continues to beat but the person is totally choked up, how long before they are irreversibly damaged? (Answer: 15-20 minutes.) If there is a cardiac arrest and there is no intervention, how long before the victim is irreversibly damaged? (Answer: 3-5 minutes.) What do I do first? What do I do second? What do I do next? How do I open an airway? In cardiac arrest and cardiac massage, how much ventilation is needed? Is there a legal liability if I try to help?* In any of a variety of geographic locations, how do I summon professional help, paramedics, Coast Guard etc.? How soon can I expect the professionals to arrive? A good course should answer most of these questions.

* In Florida, if you are merely acting as a motivated bystander trying to help, you are generally protected by the Florida Good Samaritan Act. If you are working as a doctor, nurse, EMT or Paramedic you are held to professional standards.

Dr. Jim is a long-standing member of the American Heart Association and is a past-President of the Miami Chapter.

The following members or their families have received cards or flowers from the Sunshine Fund recently.

The Sunshine fund is not funded through your dues, but is supported by donations collected over the year.

If you are aware of a club member in need of some Sunshine, please contact me via phone (correct in the roster), email (correct in the Roster), or sunshine@waterwayradio.net.

Please provide me with as much information as possible and a point of contact. This especially holds true if someone is in the hospital. When you receive flowers, please let me know, so I can confirm they were received.

Jean Freeman passed away peacefully Friday, November 21, 2008 after a brief battle with cancer. She was born in Medford, MA, on December 22, 1929.

Jean was a Worthy Advisor for the Rainbow Girls and attended Kathleen Dell Secretarial School where she was named Girl of the Year in 1949. Jean and her late husband, Phillip W. Freeman, were married for 55 years. She was a loving mother of two daughters. She enjoyed working as a Church Secretary in Red Bank, NJ for ten years.

When Jean and her husband retired in 1978, they lived aboard their 41 Morgan sailboat, FREEDOM, for five years and sailed from Maine to the Bahamas. They were Captain and First Mate on several charter cruises with the FREEDOM and also delivered many boats from FL to NJ. Jean and Phil settled in Satellite Beach in 1980 where she was an active member of the East Coast Sailing Association. Jean was an amateur radio operator and served as a weather reporter and "Sunshine Lady" on the Waterway Radio and Cruising Club. For the past ten years, Jean was the Area Director for North Waterway Estates. She was also active at Trinity Presbyterian Church. Her love of flowers and gardening gave her great pleasure.

Family and friends were very important to Jean and she was always willing to help others. She was known and loved for her high energy, enthusiasm and kindness. Jean is survived by her daughter, Linda Wood and son- in-law, Richard Wood of NJ; daughter, Cynthia Engstrom and son-in-law, Michael Engstrom of MS; two granddaughters, Sarah Rose Wood of MA and Dorothea Jean Wood of Satellite Beach; her sister-in- law, Janet McCollum and husband, Tom McCollum of FL, and many cherished friends.

Reprinted from Florida Today.

Tom K4WJC and Dave N4NVI with Tim Rulon WA2KQD and Martin Nelson KJ4MCN from NOAA.

We were staffed with just 8-9 full time weather reporters (readers) during 2008. Over 75 hours of weather was transmitted during the year and each of us averaged 10 hours of weather and made ourselves available on average of 50 days during the year. Our only setback this year was losing our good friend and associate Jean Freeman, KC4BGQ.

In terms of weather activity the year was busy as well. Here is the 2008 Tropical Weather Summary from the National Hurricane Center in Miami:

"TROPICAL CYCLONE ACTIVITY DURING THE 2008 HURRICANE SEASON WAS ABOVE AVERAGE. SIXTEEN TROPICAL STORMS OCCURRED, OF WHICH 8 BECAME HURRICANES AND 5 STRENGTHENED INTO MAJOR HURRICANES. THESE NUMBERS ARE FAR ABOVE THE LONG TERM AVERAGES OF 11, 6, AND 2, RESPECTIVELY. IN TERMS OF THE ACCUMULATED CYCLONE ENERGY (ACE) INDEX, 2008 HAD 167% OF THE LONG-TERM MEDIAN ACE, ALMOST AS MUCH ACE AS 2006 AND 2007 COMBINED."

Several NOAA facilities have told me that they seldom, if ever, receive any feedback from their forecasts. Therefore, effective January 1, we are implementing a simple weather gathering program. As part of the normal position reports received during our net, all vessels offshore will be asked to provide, in addition to their position, wind direction and speed, wave heights and any swell with height and direction of the swell. This offshore weather information will be sent to our Weather Coordinator who will immediately email the information to the appropriate Coastal Weather Office. At the present time the offices most interested are Jacksonville, Melbourne and Miami. With the information we provide these offices they will be able to verify the accuracy of their forecasts and make any needed corrections.

This is all voluntary, of course, but I urge everyone to participate if you are able. In the months ahead I will monitor the use of the information and if it is not being utilized we'll discontinue taking these reports.

Weather is a serious subject and we take our weather reporting seriously. However, ham radio and boating are fun and we admit to having enjoyed some fun events during 2008. Aside from giving our weather from the USS Yorktown in Charleston, WA4USN, we reported from the NWS office in Peachtree City, GA, WX4PTC, from Charleston, SC, WX4CHS and from Melbourne, FL, WX4MLB. This is not just fun for us but it also allows us to interact with other hams and members of the National Weather Service. Expect more of these events in 2009.

The New Jersey Assembly has passed Bill No. A2326 which requires that any power boater operating in New Jersey waters after June 1, 2009 shall be in possession of a boat safety certificate. The bill requires NJ residents to complete an approved NJ boat safety course. An out of state resident or a resident of a foreign country who is 16 years of age or older and who will be in the state for less than 90 days, may operate a power boat in NJ without having completed a NJ safe boating course provided he or she has a certificate from a boat safety course approved by the National Association of Boating Law Administration or the US Coast Guard, a safety course substantially similar to the NJ course, or a course certificate issued by the state or country in which the person resides. If this passes the NJ Senate (S2111), we will need a safe boating certificate to travel through NJ after 7/1/09, whether our own states require it or not.

Florida anchoring restrictions are once again in the forefront. After a positive outcome in the Marco Island case (in which local municipalities were found not to have authority to impose anchoring restrictions different from state law) the whole issue of cruisers' rights to anchor in Florida was turned over to Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission (FWC). The latest draft of their proposed legislation will give local government the right to regulate anchoring, even in the absence of a mooring field. Ahead of the pack, Hollywood now allows only 24-hour emergency anchoring.

Dredging has been completed in Dawho River and Ashepoo-Coosaw Cutoff in South Carolina. The Ponce de Leon Cut (Mile 840-843) has also been dredged. If they keep this up, we won't have any shoals to warn you about (but we're not there yet).

The Right Whale Ship Strike Reduction Rule became effective on December 9, 2008. From November to April the coastal waters between Altamaha Sound, GA, and Sebastian Inlet, FL, are used as calving grounds by the North Atlantic Right Whale. This is the world's only known calving ground for this species. Right Whales are the rarest whales in the world and are protected under law from disturbance or injury. The rule prohibits speeds in excess of 10 knots in the designated waters. A compliance guide is available at:
http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/pdfs/shipstrike/compliance_guide.pdf

Malaria in Great Exuma: The CDC received a confirmed report of one case of Malaria in March, 2008. They recommend anyone going there take chloroquine malaria preventive and avoid mosquito bites. See http://wwwn.cdc.gov/travel/contentMalariaBahamas07.aspx for complete information. (Thanks to Captain Marti KF4TRG for this info.)

And finally...BEWARE!! The Florida Potty Police have been raising money in the area from New Smyrna to Haulover Canal on the east coast. Several cruisers have been stopped and inspected. One poor chap who came in from an offshore passage and had not yet closed his valves got a "welcome to Florida" in the amount of $250.