RFUANZ Update September 2016

The 2017 Gala Dinner will be organised by Debby Morgan & Candice Van Dyk and together they have some exciting sponsorship opportunities for your business.

The 2017 event will see a number of new initiatives implemented to enhance the overall event which will ensure positive exposure for your sponsorship investment.

One of the major changes for the 2017 event is the way the Industry Excellence Awards will be run. This new & improved system has been implemented to recognise and acknowledge the many forms of excellence we see in our industry. It has also been implemented to make the process of nomination more attractive for the nominator. All nominees will be presented an award at the Gala Dinner and this is categorised by Gold, Silver or Bronze. An overall category winner will be presented the voucher and trophy on the evening. This new format will allow companies to promote themselves as Gold, Silver or Bronze award winners. These ‘quality stamps’ signify excellence in the industry and allow companies to promote their services & achievements to end users. Our goal is to have these ‘quality stamps’ widely recognised by both industry participants and consumers.

Click here to download the RFUANZ Gala Dinner Sponsorship Proposal.
We are calling for expressions of interest, with all submissions due by the 15th of October at 12pm.

SPECTRUM MATTERS WITH KEVIN DOVE

Calling all ships, all ships, all ships: Radio Spectrum Management together with Maritime New Zealand, the Coastguard and others have been using all means of communications to notify the marine industry of changes to the VHF Maritime radio channels next month. While these changes do not come into force internationally until January 1st 2017, the changes in New Zealand will take place on the 1st October 2016 ahead of the peak summer recreational boating season.

New Zealand along with a number of countries is required to change some Maritime VHF repeater channels to make way for newly allocated international services for ship tracking and data services. New Zealand will be moving a few private VHF services, most Coast Guard VHF repeater services and all NowCasting weather services to accommodate these changes.

Although some maritime channels will be changing, the existing Maritime Channel 16 used for Safety, Distress and calling will not change and those with existing VHF radios will be able to use their current radios, however you may need to switch to a new channel to continue to access a local repeater or listen to the weather forecast.

The biggest change that will be noticed is the new 4 digit maritime channels for the Coastguard and NowCasting weather service. Boaties will still be able to listen to the weather channels on their current VHF radios by simply dropping the first two digits and using the last two digits of the 4-digit channel number. For example, in the Waitemata Harbour where the new weather channel is 2019, you only need to use channel 19

For more information on the changes to the International Maritime Mobile Repeater allocations, please click here: www.retune.co.nz