- V8V2222 -
HF/SSB radio email and voice services

BBR HF/SSB Email

Email with file attachments
for remote subscribers -
on land and sea.

BRUNEI BAY RADIO has established a HF radio e-mail service for a variety of users who require reliable email from isolated locations in SE Asia, NW Pacific and Indian Oceans.  

BBRemail  was developed in response to needs highlighted at the regional Marine Tourism Symposium in Kuala Lumpur in 2005 and to address the requirements of cruising yacht families with children enrolled in correspondence education.  

BBRemail also facilitates the poverty alleviation goals of the BIMP-EAGA Business Council's October 2008 conference on Community-based Ecotourism by providing cheap, reliable email for isolated communities, sustainable environment projects and remote SMEs. 

BBRemail is our specially developed version of the popular and proven SailMail system for cruising yachts that we have operated from here in Brunei since 2001. 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, pdf and OpenOffice.

It has been developed specifically for this region to address the need for low-cost but dependable email requirements for:

• Small commercial vessels

• Cruising families - especially for correspondence courses

• Remote jungle eco-resorts

• Live-aboard dive, surf and charter vessels

• Island resorts and dive centres

• Conservation & rehabilitation sites and projects

• Environmental protection monitoring

• Community based ecotourism programmes

• Distance education - for communities and individuals

Our BBRemail  service offers varied daily data traffic allowances ( 20, 30 or 40 mins per day) to suit subscriber requirements, and transfer of attachments, such as Word, Excel, pdf, jpg, OpenOffice etc.

It is especially useful for:

Cruising yachts or motor-yachts with greater email requirements, such as those with adults or children studying via  correspondence courses, and people who need to maintain business contact, or manage investments - eg: real estate - while cruising. BBRemail gives these cruisers the opportunity to also enjoy the quiet anchorages, jungle rivers, wildlife venues, pristine beaches and remote islands of this region; rather than “cruise” from one Wi-Fi equipped marina or town internet facility to the next.    

Extending the cruising budget by cruising away from marinas and town anchorages to the less congested bays and islands.  There are plenty of opportunities for immersion in the greater complexity of commercialised life in many parts of SE Asia. But keeping away from these areas helps manage the budget. Rowing ashore to buy fresh food from local communities, fishing and meals on-board are some of the cost-saving benefits that come with cruising away from marinas, towns etc.  BBRemail  provides the additional email capability to maintain contact with family and friends, order parts at the next town, arrange for visitors and shore travel, send the magazine article, or post pictures and reports to a website.  

Maintaining an involved lifestyle while cruising. As baby-boomer sailors retire, many seek to continue to explore, learn, meet new people and in some cases, contribute to the communities and habitats they encounter. SE Asian provides multiple opportunities to continue an active, stimulating and worthwhile lifestyle; on a retirement budget. BBRemail helps make that possible by providing cheap, reliable, email communication while living for extended periods in low-cost anchorages, islands, coastal bays etc. 

Small businesses in isolated locations, where the convenience and truly low cost of BBRemail greatly improves business efficiency, operational safety for staff and clients, and opens new markets and ways of doing business that previously seemed impossible. This is especially true for isolated community-based ecotourism facilities, where email provides contact with international agents for bookings, and streamlines ordering supplies, managing guest arrivals etc.  

Communities that see the opportunity to establish ecotourism to provide income to replace overfishing, wildlife poaching or other unsustainable practices.  The BIMP-EAGA Business Council conference (October '08 in Manado - Sulawesi) on poverty alleviation through community-based ecotourism, highlighted the benefits - for local people, visitors, wildlife, cultural heritage and global environmental issues - that accrue when communities gain financial benefit from tourism by preserving and protecting the environment that sustains them.  BBRemail gives isolated communities the communication capability to link with clients, agents, suppliers, educators, environmental consultants, financial aid and conservation volunteers.

Small commercial vessels that lack the financial capability to operate expensive satellite communications to receive important weather and safety related information. Some vessels required to fit GMDSS satellite equipment for registration purposes do not have the operating income to pay for its  services.  BBRemail provides an alternative at a feasible price; for safe management of the vessel and crew.

Tourism and recreation oriented vessels that need the efficiency benefits of email to manage their operations. This includes live-aboard dive and surf charter boats, charter yachts etc. These vessels may be too small to require GMDSS equipment for registration, but they nevertheless will benefit from weather information and the cost-savings of quick communication with their shore office, agents or direct booking clients, plus advance ordering of food and other supplies, and managing guest arrivals/departures.  BBRemail provides that capability at a realistic price. 

Distance education for commercial vessel crews, cruising yachts and remote communities. A wide range of school, vocational and academic courses leading to recognised certificates, diplomas and degrees are available via correspondence learning techniques. Health sciences, tourism, technical, social science and computing courses are available.  BBRemail provides the capability to give access to these forms of modern education at a realistic price. Once the equipment - radio/modem/antenna - are setup, multiple subscribers with separate notebooks can plug on to send/receive their course materials and assignments.

Sustainable environment organisations, including not-for-profit groups such as The Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund and The Orangutan Foundation. SE Asia is home to the largest area of coral in the world - now designated as The Coral Triangle - and numerous unique species, such as the Orangutan. BBRemail provides a low-cost, portable, and field durable email service that can be powered by solar panels, operated from a car battery, and shared by numerous users.

Operational aspects of BBRemail:

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 or land based 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 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 BBRemail: 

Connection time is averaged over a month, so it's possible to be over time on some days and this is balanced by quiet days.

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 and one-time software licence of Bn$200 also applies for each subscriber/e-mail account.

Additional services included with BBRemail:

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. 

Back to top

Call-sign: V8V2222    SelCall ID: 2222

For enquiries 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 G4, 1st Floor, Bangunan Sungai Akar Central
Simpang 158, Jalan Sungai Akar
Bandar Seri Begawan BC3915
BRUNEI DARUSSALAM

Copyright © 1999 - 2016, Intrepid Management Services Sdn Bhd