BBR HF/SSB E-mail

HF/SSB radio e-mail
for Commercial and Recreational users.
 

Provides file attachments & large connection times
for remote subscribers on land and sea.

Brunei Bay Radio has established a new HF radio e-mail service for commercial users and cruising yachts with high email requirements in SE Asia, NW Pacific and Indian Oceans.  

This service is particularly useful for marine tourism operators - live aboard dive boats, fishing charters, charter yachts - in addition to small commercial vessels, such as coastal traders, fishing trawlers, tugs, barges, survey and support vessels. And also for isolated islands, remote work sites or tourist resorts where alternate e-mail communication is either not available, difficult, costly or unreliable.

It's also very suited to long-term cruisers in the BBR service area, and in particular for family cruisers with children enrolled in correspondence schooling. And for cruisers who require more connection time to stay in contact with business, or manage investments - such as real estate - while cruising. It removes the need to cruise just from one internet cafe or Wi-Fi equipped marina to the next.  Many of the great cruising attractions in SE Asia are not in the built up areas. Cruising these uncrowded islands, small communities, beautiful beaches and clear water anchorages is also far less expensive than the high density marina route. 

This new service is our specially developed version of the popular and proven SailMail system for cruising yachts that we have operated from here in Brunei for the last seven years. It has the same great system reliability, data compression and transfer speed, but allows higher daily connection time, and attachments such as word, excel, jpg, and pdf.

Our base equipment here in Brunei (which includes multiple radios for multiple simultaneous connections), already provides existing SailMail users – using the relatively inefficient antennas and power supplies on most cruising yachts - with an effective HF radio e-mail service from The Solomons/Papua New Guinea through to the Maldives, and Japan to the southern Indian Ocean. With the better antennas, power supply etc on larger vessels, and land installations, subscribers to this service can expect faster connection times and more thorough coverage.

The same design philosophy that underlies the SailMail software and system integration is utilised in this service. This is to create an extremely reliable and stable service that minimises connection time so multiple users can share the same radio frequencies and base radio equipment etc, in order to minimise set-up costs and management time. (The designers and  programmers want to go sailing rather than sit managing the system.)

This efficient and minimal resources approach is the opposite to many commercial remote area e-mail systems. Instead, these services normally aim to maximise profits through relatively unsophisticated message handling, minimal development time on smart operation, and extended connection times for users. For example, if a connection is lost with a "low-cost" satellite system (eg: Iridium or the SE Asian Aces service) , the same message must be re-sent from the start; at considerable expense. With the BBR HF/SSB e-mail service, the system remembers where the previous connection reached in transferring the message, and starts from there when a new connection is established. 

Subscription levels for the BBR HF/SSB E-mail service: 

Levels 1 to 3 also permit additional daily/monthly connection time above the averaged limits, for Bn$0.25 per minute connection time. This suits sudden short term business demands.

An initial setup/licence fee of Bn$100 also applies for each subscriber/e-mail account.

BBR HF/SSB E-mail includes numerous services:

FREE access to official METAREA or coastal forecasts. Select from a large catalogue of forecasts in the radio e-mail software. The software automatically formats the request e-mail to the shore PC which harvests the information from the internet and e-mails it back.  (Brunei Bay Radio instigated the establishment of a website that contains the official METAREA forecasts – the same forecasts available to commercial shipping via INMARSAT satellite system at substantial cost.)

FREE access to GRIB weather charts with wind speed and direction indicators, and predictions to 5 days ahead. These charts are created from the same database (the USA’s NOAA system) used by the US Navy and many commercial weather chart and weather prediction services. GRIB weather charts are far more useful than normal weather fax (especially in low latitudes where isobars are broadly spaced) because they include wind direction and wind speed information.

The HF radio e-mail software has a graphic display to draw the required area of GRIB chart, and automatically creates the detailed request e-mail to send to the shore PC to create the chart data (using the latest weather information updated by the NOAA each 6 hours) and e-mail it back for display using the free weather fax/GRIB file software that is available with a BBR HF/SSB E-mail subscription.

FREE harvesting of any web page. Send the appropriately formatted request e-mail to the shore PC which collects the page/s, strips out the graphics, and e-mails it back.

FREE HF radio propagation software integrated with the on-board radio e-mail software. This helps subscribers choose the optimum frequency to use for their connection with Brunei Bay Radio. Frequency selection is based upon time of day, distance from our base, and present atmospheric propagation factors; principally the result of sun spot activity. The Solar Flux Index (SFI) – a measure of sun spot activity - is automatically updated in the on-board software each time the remote user connects to BBR, so the integrated propagation software’s prediction is as accurate as possible. 

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Call-sign: V8V2222    SelCall ID: 2222

For inquiries click here to email Brunei Bay Radio

Brunei Bay Radio 
PO Box 2234
Bandar Seri Begawan  BS8674
BRUNEI DARUSSALAM

Phn: 673 2 262676     Fax: 673 2 262675

Unit 105, 1st Floor, PGGMB Building
Jalan Sungai Kianggeh
Bandar Seri Begawan BS8111
BRUNEI DARUSSALAM
 

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