Radio Communications

It is nice to get out of Golfito, which has a well-deserved reputation as a 'black hole', when it comes to talking on the radio. The only net we could reach while we were there was the Northwest Caribbean net.

But today we talked on the Panama Pacific Net (8143 USB at 1400UTC) and on 'Ben's Net'

The Pan Pacific Net is all cruisers between El Salvador and Ecuador on the Pacific side. It is 10% safety and Security, 10% weather, and 80% social and cruising information. We listen every day when we can ear them. But on our trip from Panama to Golfito, we lost them after we rounded Punta Mala, and have been unable to hear them since.

Ben's Net is a small group of cruising guys that meet together on the ham band at 14.261 Mhz at 2100UTC to talk about cruising and boats and stuff. I've been chatting with Ben, K3BC, since I was on Island Time in the Caribbean in 1993-1997. Today I talked with Ken KW9I up near Chicago (and freezing his butt off), Ben in the Chesapeake Bay area, and Jim KC4AZ, in Vero Beach. Because of the skip, sometimes they can't hear each other, but they could all hear me.

Ben gave us a short synopsis of the end of the Super Bowl, which we'd forgotten to ask about on the Pan Pacific net. Sounds like we missed a good one.