This is the Canadian Amateur Radio Maritime Mobile call sign for VE3/VE6/VA7OTC.

I surrendered VA7JD (now held  by Jay Doucet) to acquire this one since IC now disallows a ham in Canada from having more than one 'two letter' call. The Industry Canada agent I worked with via e-mail was fabulous. Unlike the USA where the zero is used as one of the terrestrial call sign prefixes VEØ calls are "wet". VEØ calls are not required for use afloat on lakes, rivers or within 12 NM of the coastline of Canada (or the USA). They are required for use in Canadian flagged vessels beyond Canadian territorial waters yet may be used on board Cdn vessels, even in Cdn territorial waters. They may not be used ashore.

I'm surprised we don't have one on the ISS as part of ARISS.

I didn't have connected APRS (area nav unit connected to TNC & radio) while I was on the S/V R. TUCKER THOMPSON when sailing from Honolulu to Victoria in 2005. The TUCKER was in transit to participate in the ASTA - Pacific Tall Ships Challenge and the Victoria Tall Ship Festival 23-26 June 05. However I did manually input my position a number of times in my Kenwood TH-D7A/G from the mouth of Juan De Fuca Strait right into Victoria Harbour.

Now you may hear me with this call while onboard S/V MAPLE LEAF, a schooner built in BC in 1904. That has often been July to mid-Sept however I tend to be pretty busy, only taking a quick break from Sail Training, at that mostly to quickly check into the BC Boaters Net on the Vancouver Island Trunked System. http://www.islandtrunksystem.org/

Cheers es 73, 'JD'/John

Information for three "North East Pacific" boater's nets: http://www.toandos.com/nwbn.html

Here are some regional repeater listings: http://www.bcarcc.org/ and http://ham-shack.com/can_repeater_bc.html