Ask the coastguard?

Coastwatch phone numbers

Here are the NCI phone numbers (forgive any typos)
St Ives 01736 799398
St Albans Head 01929 439220
Cape Cornwall 01736 787890
Swanage 01929 422596
Gwennap Head 01736 871351
Folkstone 01303 227132
Bass Point 01326 290212
Holehaven 01268 696971
Polruan 01726 870291
Felixtowe 01394 670808
Rame Head 01752 823706
Gorleston 01493 440384
Prawle Point 01548 511259
Mundesley 01263 722399
Exmouth 01395 222492
Harlepool 01429 274931
Portland 01305 860178
Southend 01702 299330
Portscatho 01872 580180
Penzance 01736 36706
Herne Bay 01227 743208
Padstow 07810 898041
Bocastle (!!!) 01840 250965
Charlestown 01726 817068


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I would have headed back out if the fog had persisted. In the event it cleared within 5 miles of the Needles. I heard another yacht reporting fog of St Catherines. I wonder if they included this report in their regular VHF weather broadcasts?

Are the CG VHF receivers smart enough to ignore traffic outside their area? They can pick out your position pretty accurately (though I havn't heard anyone asking for a fix for years).

Rob.



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Re: Coastwatch phone numbers

Great posting, Philip.

Have printed and laminated your list for future use. There's nothing like a real live view on actual conditions, and should make for easier decisions on how many miles off a headland.

<hr width=100% size=1><font color=red>Jeremy Flynn/forums/images/icons/crazy.gif
Dawn Chorus</font color=red>
 
Re: Coastwatch phone numbers

Coastwatch stations welcome visitors. We spent a very enjoyable hour or so just after Christmas at Rame Head station just west of Plymouth last year. As others have said they are all volunteers and welcome a chat when things are quiet.

Its very interesting and they have great high powered binoculars to look through.

I was surprised to see that although they had VHF they were not licensed to use it, and that they were listening on 67 not 16. I was also suprised to see that they logged the name of every vessel including small yachts that pass by. We had passed that way some months before and when they pulled out their logs sure enough there we were.

Rame Head station also sell some delightful hand painted cards for their funds

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Brixham CG do not have any view points other than Torbay. This means they have to rely on NCI stations and as they are not manned 24hrs they have to wait until someone is there. I am sure that once they have the reports they would be more than happy to pass this on to anyone who asks. They quite regularly interrogate the Channel Light Vessel and pass on weather details from that to yachts people, so I am sure had you called back at a later time your request for details would have been met.
Incidently for Philip perhaps you could put the opening times of the NCI stations, not much point in trying to ring when no one there.


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The NCI site wasn't working a few days ago, but it seems to have been fixed.

Try <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.nci.org.uk/index.html>here</A>

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Hi Ruffles

Call the Coastguard by all means, as long as we are not incident working it is fine and if you are calling Solent Coastguard use Channel 67... Solent are the only station that monitors Ch67 24/7 for routine traffic and radio checks

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Hi Andrew
Solent CG monitor Ch 67 24/7, so long as you listen out before transmitting you should be ok and we prefer you call us direct on Ch67 for routine traffic. ALL other stations should be called on Ch 16 first. however be aware that we have antenna at various points along the coast so if you are at one end of the patch and we are working same frequency at the other end we may ask you to hold.

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hi again Rob

I'm afraid our receivers pick up all sorts... CROSS Corsen to Swansea Coastguard and Dover Coastguard to Oostende Radio and almost all points between... at times we are overloaded with calls coming thru on different antennae, your call may be stomped on (overspoken) by CROSS Joburg on the Cherbourg Peninsular. there are weak spots in the Solent that we try to cover with different antenna.

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Zeewolf,

Where exactly are your antennae. Lee on Solent presumably. Where else on the coast?: Needles. There are several people here who are honestly interested

<hr width=100% size=1>Me transmitte sursum, caledoni
 
Re: National Coastwatch Institute

NCI stations are manned by enthusiastic volunteers, but only presumably when they feel like it. In my experience their attendance hours are so varied that it's probably no use putting anything in an almanac and the hours might well have changed, or the 'station' stopped functioning, before the book goes into print.

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