Coastguard Voice

NormanS said:
It's a long time since Clyde CG closed, and even longer for Oban.
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I know, but the argument for fewer centralised stations was that the less busy operators would be able to cover the busy areas, obviously bollocks and so it has been proved.

I got a smart phone when the Stornoway CC stopped doing the forecast every 3 hours when I was in Tobermory because it was windy and they were working casualties, at exactly the times when they were needed.

Calling Oban then would have been a good option. But it was closed.
 
aquaplane said:
I know, but the argument for fewer centralised stations was that the less busy operators would be able to cover the busy areas, obviously bollocks and so it has been proved.

I got a smart phone when the Stornoway CC stopped doing the forecast every 3 hours when I was in Tobermory because it was windy and they were working casualties, at exactly the times when they were needed.

Calling Oban then would have been a good option. But it was closed.
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I have argued for a long time that the Forecasts should be broadcast by a dedicated body, not by the CG who only do it when they're not busy with "Incident Working", somewhere in their huge area.

As someone has already posted, other countries broadcast a continuously updated loop.

Personally, I lost all respect for the CG service when they were playing silly buggers, and refusing to broadcast Safety Information Broadcasts. I installed a Navtex.
 
davidej said:
A number of countries have a pre-recorded forecast played continuously on a loop. Needs its own dedicated channel but seems to me a wonderful idea.
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Yes - and it's not as if there's a shortage of disused "public correspondence" channels that are duplex and hence not much use for many purposes, but ideal for this.

I'm not a radio engineer, but I think you might need more than one in order to alternate them around the coast and prevent interference, but again, there's plenty of room.

Pete
 
prv said:
Yes - and it's not as if there's a shortage of disused "public correspondence" channels that are duplex and hence not much use for many purposes, but ideal for this.

I'm not a radio engineer, but I think you might need more than one in order to alternate them around the coast and prevent interference, but again, there's plenty of room.

Pete
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I think that's the plan behind the recent move to new channels for MSI broadcasts - although in the west country, where Ch10 and 23 have been lost to broadcast, it's already causing problems in some areas.

There's a reason we used to broadcast on 6 channels at Falmouth not just the three that are used now.
 
chanelyacht said:
Which is compiled and broadcast by... HM Coastguard!
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Yes, but Navtex is unaffected by "incident working". SY CG cover a huge area, using many transmitter aerials, but if some poor soul slips off a path at Tobermory, as often as not they choose not to do the normal MSI broadcast on their 10(?) aerials. I have never experienced a neighbouring station, i.e. Belfast or Shetland, putting out the broadcast on SY's behalf, although that is what we were told would happen when stations were being closed.
 
NormanS said:
Yes, but Navtex is unaffected by "incident working". SY CG cover a huge area, using many transmitter aerials, but if some poor soul slips off a path at Tobermory, as often as not they choose not to do the normal MSI broadcast on their 10(?) aerials. I have never experienced a neighbouring station, i.e. Belfast or Shetland, putting out the broadcast on SY's behalf, although that is what we were told would happen when stations were being closed.
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Firstly, you might not know - if we broadcast an MSI for Solent, for example, we (Portland) would ID as Solent. The person on the end of the VHF wouldn't know.

Secondly, Navtex was affected by casualty working. It used to be managed week about by Falmouth and Humber as they were the only ones with the software system. Now, that has gone to the NMOC, changing a double point of failure to a single one. Good idea...

A bit like changing the direct links to aerial sites to a virtual switch. I remember a good few BT faults which took out a single aerial, in which case we sent a coast rescue team up to plug into the aerial site. The change to a single switch meant recently that a similar BT failure took out all Ch16 comms from Kent to south Wales.

That's progress...
 
chanelyacht said:
Firstly, you might not know - if we broadcast an MSI for Solent, for example, we (Portland) would ID as Solent. The person on the end of the VHF wouldn't know.
..
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Yes, but it's quite a clue when they come on Ch16, and say, "Due to casualty working......no broadcast". Or indeed, if there just is no broadcast.
 
chanelyacht said:
I think that's the plan behind the recent move to new channels for MSI broadcasts - although in the west country, where Ch10 and 23 have been lost to broadcast, it's already causing problems in some areas.

There's a reason we used to broadcast on 6 channels at Falmouth not just the three that are used now.
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But if it was automated it needn't

Three Channels should be enough.

5 minute Broadcast

Ch A, B and C all transmit for locations 1, 2 and 3 at the same time. 5 minutes later A, B and C transmit for 4, 5, 6. you could do that on an hourly cycle with three channels and cover 12 x 3 = 36 locations. You must be able to geographically work that so that a second set of 36 locations, and even a third set can also run without overlapping. But it would need automation. So using channels that can not serve any other purpose.

System can easily pick up a set of files saved from a central studio. Forecast only needs updated every 2-4 hours. Just replays the same thing each time.
 
The year before last we were in the West Coast of Scotland. One of the Coastguard announcers had the most amazing and very camp Scottish accent. He was so effortlessly amusing he could make a fortune on the radio. The crew could not wait for him to come on the radio (sorry if come is a bad choice of words) and I had to put my foot down to stop them calling him up for a laugh.
 
Somebody mentioned continuous broadcasts. Sounds fine but in practice you would need several dedicated channels. I do not know how many. But guess that would kill the idea for the U.K. unless you were thinking of the Solent and the Clyde only. I do know that around W France we have continuous broadcasts on Ch63 from Ethel and Chassiron. I have rarely heard either. I think they are OK if you sail in fairly lim9ted areas, we are travellers so are often out of range.

Back to one of my hobby horses. We need good reliable wireless internet access around all our coasts. Even my little Huawei dongle works well 4 or 5 miles out. A better device with a reasonably good aerial works about 10-15 or more miles out. Better still would be a satellite system with IMO blessing, recognised as part of the GMDSS and priced accordingly. All terrestrial radio systems have insurmountable problems. We need a 21st century solution, not a mid 20th century one.
 
franksingleton said:
Somebody mentioned continuous broadcasts. Sounds fine but in practice you would need several dedicated channels. I do not know how many. But guess that would kill the idea for the U.K. unless you were thinking of the Solent and the Clyde only. I do know that around W France we have continuous broadcasts on Ch63 from Ethel and Chassiron. I have rarely heard either. I think they are OK if you sail in fairly lim9ted areas, we are travellers so are often out of range.

Back to one of my hobby horses. We need good reliable wireless internet access around all our coasts. Even my little Huawei dongle works well 4 or 5 miles out. A better device with a reasonably good aerial works about 10-15 or more miles out. Better still would be a satellite system with IMO blessing, recognised as part of the GMDSS and priced accordingly. All terrestrial radio systems have insurmountable problems. We need a 21st century solution, not a mid 20th century one.
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The continuous loop system seems to work alright in that little country over there, called the USA. :rolleyes:
 
franksingleton said:
Somebody mentioned continuous broadcasts. Sounds fine but in practice you would need several dedicated channels.
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Depends whether continuous means 100% or not. 10 mins on, 10 mins off on each particular transmitter would ease many of the issues, 10 on, 20 off would probably solve the vast majority.

I doubt we'll ever get full 3G/4G coverage of the coasts. Increasing regulation and the cost of subsidising smartphones has killed many of the mobile phone companies' revenue streams, with EU roaming being the last nail. There just isn't the money for marginal investments any more.

I did get involved on the periphery of a LEO satellite phone system many years ago (we were looking at billing). Satellite phone systems are a nightmare to set up and the sort of thing you have in mind is very unlikely to happen. The company we were doing work for ended up having to destroy the satellites they'd already launched, which must've cost someone a pretty packet.
 
lpdsn said:
Depends whether continuous means 100% or not. 10 mins on, 10 mins off on each particular transmitter would ease many of the issues, 10 on, 20 off would probably solve the vast majority.
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That would be worth exploring.


I doubt we'll ever get full 3G/4G coverage of the coasts. Increasing regulation and the cost of subsidising smartphones has killed many of the mobile phone companies' revenue streams, with EU roaming being the last nail. There just isn't the money for marginal investments any more.
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My cruising in recent years has been confined to Dartmouth, St Malo, the Charente area, basically Brittany, the Vendee, Charente Maritime. Last year I had a Three PAYG sim. On passage I was rarely out of contact. Next year, I will be paying £20 a month PAYG for 12 Gb. That will be far more than I would want just for all my weather needs. It will cover all my other use, maybe not too much video streaming. With my Huawei 3350 dongle, I could go online with IPad or laptop, up to around 4 or 5 miles out. A friend with a more expensive device, mine was about £40-50 I think, had connection about 13 miles out.


I did get involved on the periphery of a LEO satellite phone system many years ago (we were looking at billing). Satellite phone systems are a nightmare to set up and the sort of thing you have in mind is very unlikely to happen. The company we were doing work for ended up having to destroy the satellites they'd already launched, which must've cost someone a pretty packet.
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I am not a user of satellite technology but CA members have used a variety of devices with flexible contracts. For example, they could put a contract into abeyance when ashore for a while. The Deloitte inReach was one that was highly spoken of but there are others. Were I doing a lot of sailing in an area with poor mobile internet availability over terrestrial connection, I would certainly be looking carefully at satellite. Forecasts can all (mostly, at least) be obtained in plain text. Saildocs can get GRIB data in as small file size as you want. Such services were developed for use of email ove HF/SSB where attachments had to be less than about 30 kB. My sponsor, MailASail, has a free email service to get synoptic charts in compressed form - about 25kb for a chart.

The technology is there, the services are there. The prime need, as I see it, is for URLs of forecasts to be stable. That is where IMO/WMO should be exerting their authority over national providers. The powers that be should be recognising that GMDSS information provided over the internet is a GMDSS service and be encouraging their national authorities to ensure tha it is robust. It could be far more reliable the conventional terrestrial radio. Some would argue that it already is.
 
franksingleton said:
With my Huawei 3350 dongle, I could go online with IPad or laptop, up to around 4 or 5 miles out. A friend with a more expensive device, mine was about £40-50 I think, had connection about 13 miles out.
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A lot of it depends I believe on how the cell site is set up. I get the impression that the UK operators aren't keen on spending money on expensive kit just to point out over the sea.

The range is of course line of sight. 4G is at radar frequencies after all.

Satellites are OK for downloading, if expensive, but with geo stationary satellites there are of course delays. If you wanted a more interactive browsing set-up it would require LEO satellites and what killed the one I mentioned was dealing with all those countries over which the staellites passed.
 
lpdsn said:
A lot of it depends I believe on how the cell site is set up. I get the impression that the UK operators aren't keen on spending money on expensive kit just to point out over the sea.

The range is of course line of sight. 4G is at radar frequencies after all.

Satellites are OK for downloading, if expensive, but with geo stationary satellites there are of course delays. If you wanted a more interactive browsing set-up it would require LEO satellites and what killed the one I mentioned was dealing with all those countries over which the staellites passed.
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You certainly would not browse via satellite. You can get all the forecasts you need via email. GMDSS texts, GRIBS, charts. All as small files. Coverage over the sea is, of course, important if, like me, you are using 3G. My experience is really limited to France in recent years. All I can say is that I have been able to get good reception s few miles out. We were doing so along the N coast of Spain back in 2011.
 
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