Each ONC cabled observatory has its own land-based shore station, where power and communications connections are made as close to the underwater instruments as possible to minimize data loss. Providing high voltage DC current to our subsea instruments, optic fibres are housed in armoured marine telecommunications-rated cables, connecting a copper conductor and Ethernet communications. Many shore stations also include a weather station and onshore camera.
ONC operates several shore stations in locations across British Columbia including Port Alberni, Sidney, and Vancouver, as well as community observatories including China Creek, Digby Island, Gascoyne Inlet, and Cambridge Bay.
Data is transmitted from ONC’s subsea instruments to our shore stations via many different communication channels. The geographic locations where data is collected vary greatly from highly accessible to extremely remote.
