Cruiseheimers and Doo-Dah Nets

Cruiseheimers

The Cruiseheimers Net (Homeport at BDB) is a marine single sideband (SSB) voice communications network that supports safety at sea, position reporting, and chatting. The crew on Jule III has been using Cruiseheimers since 2001 on our first trip to the Bahamas. Cruiseheimers was and is a great companion for us. We participate by checking in with position report and lurk by listening where everybody is located and what they are doing. During our 2010-2011 to the Eastern Caribbean, Cruiseheimers was invaluable in relaying message traffic from the states, including Chris Parker weather.

Though many frequencies are 'advertised', the vast majority of times Cruiseheimers broadcasts on 8152 kHz at 0830 ET with alternative frequencies of 8146 kHz and 8164 kHz. During our lurking times, we have heard Cruiseheimers a couple of times on 6227 kHz.

Net protocol is simple and is discussed as a preample to each Cruiseheimer session. A complete protocol is provided at BDB.

The Cruiseheimers players try to record each Cruiseheimers session. SV C Language maintains a log of these sessions which can be found here.

Doo-Dah Network (DDN)

DDN is a safety at sea network that accepts and records distress information, position reports, and provides a USCG liason for vessels on an offshore passage. DDN operates on 8152 kHz (alternates of 8146/8164 kHz) at 1730 ET.

Dick Giddings of SV St. Jude is the network manager of DDN. He recently received the Award of Merit from the Ocean Cruising Club (OCC) and receives praise from USCG and the Salty Dawg Rally participants. DDN will soon have a web site that will detail the operations of this valuable service.