Do you ever use any of the DSC functions on your VHF?

[Babylon]

Please do NOT answer this poll if you use a non-DSC VHF radio.

This poll is intended to establish how many owners of DSC VHF radios use any of the Digital Selective Calling functions available.

If you do regularly use (or have ever had to use in an emergency or safety situation) any of the DSC-specific functions, then please specify which.

Don't tick NO plus one of the other options; although its a multiple option poll, if you've ticked NO then none of the options logically apply. If the answer is YES, you may tick as many of the functions that you do regularly use or have used.

Getting your LAT-LONG off the VHF display does not count as DSC use.

Babylon

 

[fireball]

I've looked at it ... even put some MMSI numbers in ... but other than attempting to test it - nope ...

 

[[2574]]

I'm not sure why there's so much negativity toward DSC; I reckon some people might just be confused by it all. I find it very useful and more than anything efficient. When cruising in Company as we do from time to time it's really handy to call other boats without going on 16 and calling and changing channels and all that nonsense. And it reduces 16 traffic; has to be a good thing doesn't it? We've all got fed up with one yacht repeatedly calling another yacht (and vice versa) all day as they progress along the Solent; it gets very boring after the umpteenth call. DSC removes all that in an instant and clears the airwaves for emergency traffic. Good kit.

 

[prv]

Don't have AIS and don't know anyone else with a radio on the water, so I would never have any other MMSI to contact. I suppose I could look up the one for Solent Coastguard, but if I ever need to talk to them routinely I can't see any benefit to DSC over a voice call on ch67. Likewise any marinas etc (although I've only ever spent one night at a Solent marina in KS and that because one of my crew needed to get a train home).

DSC is entirely irrelevant to me outside of a distress situation, and I'm not convinced it's the Second Coming there either.

Pete

 

[chubby]

I have never used the DSC facilities to transmit but does listening to the alarm after a distress call count? Sometimes these are a nuisance when for example about something in a traffic lane on the other side of the channel but has been useful/ of interest when related to a situation nearer

 

[prv]

I'm not sure why there's so much negativity toward DSC; I reckon some people might just be confused by it all. I find it very useful and more than anything efficient. When cruising in Company as we do from time to time it's really handy to call other boats without going on 16 and calling and changing channels and all that nonsense. And it reduces 16 traffic; has to be a good thing doesn't it?

I'm not negative about it, but it's simply an irrelevance to me since I don't cruise in company with anyone else (none of my friends have boats).

Keeping routine calls off 16 is a good thing, but where I sail anyone who cared about that would use a mobile anyway. In fact I probably hear more pointless radio checks on 16 than I do routine calls between yachts, and those numpties are a lost cause already.

Pete

 

[RAI]

I've found it useful in combination with a chart plotter, where the Mayday-ed DSC position turns up as a mark on the plotter display. It's much easier than writing down the coordinates and transfering them to a chart.

 

[Playtime]

Use it regularly to call other boats for which I have the MMSI (i.e. mates). It's very handy to avoid clutter on Ch 16; almost like using a 'phone, except others can listen in if scanning etc.

I also ticked (in error) the use in collision avoidance. I have used the DSC radio several times to call big ships on collision course when alerted by the AIS, but not by using their MMSI - it takes too long to programme in.

I use either Ch 16 or 13 for this, so the <1> showing for this function in the poll currently should really still be zero.

Note to self: understand the question fully before answering.

 

[johnalison]

I think this thread is beginning to confirm my original conjecture. I don't know what is to be done about it but I imagine that at some future time the system will be changed so that all calls have to be made digitally and possibly with the refinement that there will be "open" calls for distress and urgency and "closed" calls that are only heard by the intended recipient.

 

[[2574]]

And it has a safety value?

I've recently acquired a Standard Horizon portable VHF DSC. It's waterproof and it floats. The idea is that the crew on watch at night clips it to their coat. If they go overboard I can poll that DSC from the ship DSC and it will return the lat/long of the casualty. No involvement required in that process from the casualty and it's five simple key strokes on the main set. Not infallible for sure but another tool in the safety armoury.

 

[Bat21]

The more posts I read on forums regarding DSC radio's and their use, the more I become convinced that few people who have DSC radios and post on fora have attended a full SRC course or indeed read and understood the manual which came with their radio. Many people who do not have DSC sets are not aware of all the advantages available.

 

[Babylon]

QUOTE johnalison:
"...I imagine that at some future time the system will be changed so that all calls have to be made digitally and possibly with the refinement that there will be "open" calls for distress and urgency and "closed" calls that are only heard by the intended recipient."

Yes, but I currently rely on listening to VTS, QHM, bridge-to-bridge as well as CGs to get a picture of what's happening out there generally.

I was also in a situation last summer where I'd just passed at 200 meters a yacht pounding on the Bramble Bank who seemed through the bins to be doing nothing to help himself. I stood by in deep enough water listening to Ch 16 but there was no voice traffic. It was only when I hailed him on 16 as "Yacht stranded on the Bramble Bank" etc (to which he didn't reply directly), that I then heard a very frightened voice calling the CG, followed by the CG's reply, followed by some confusion by the CG as to where the Bramble Bank was (he didn't have a GPS aboard to give an exact LAT-LONG) followed by the despatch of the Hamble inshore lifeboat, followed by the LB's voice transmissions (their RIB was also standing off in deeper water) explaining to him to turn around and motor hard in the crests until he finally slid off the southern steep-to slope and motored around to accompany the LB back to the Hamble.

If your suggested future scenario were true, then I believe we'd be in a less safe situation. We'd also miss all those wonderful overheard transmissions - like the two Taffy fishermen long separated on different vessels discussing how things were going back at home!

Babylon

PS - I can't get the 'quote' function to work at the moment.

 

[prv]

I imagine that at some future time the system will be changed so that all calls have to be made digitally and possibly with the refinement that there will be "open" calls for distress and urgency and "closed" calls that are only heard by the intended recipient.

Maybe eventually, but I think it will be a very, very long time since that mode of working is so fundamentally different from current VHF. What you describe is more akin to a mobile phone network than normal voice radio. DSC merely added a few control mechanisms on top of the existing technology - to have a system where analogue calls are impossible and only managed (closed, or open only under certain circumstances) digital transmissions are available is a complete wholesale change. I believe the Police have done it, and the Army may have finally got something of that nature off the ground, but they are single organisations that can mandate change from the top down. There must be millions of more or less autonomous VHF users worldwide, and to get them all to change is no simple task.

The likely way we'll end up there (and I agree we're unlikely to be using analogue VHF in 100 years' time) would be to create such a system *alongside* analogue VHF (maybe steal a few little-used channels from it to make space) and gradually let the analogue mode become less popular and die away. I'd expect that process to take decades though, unless some *really* heavy-handed legislation banned its use. VHF isn't a centrally-controlled system - if you have an analogue set and I have an analogue set, and I want to talk to you I can. The only real way you can stop me is to DF my position and send the jackbooted thugs round.

Pete

 

[Searush]

Please get this straight;
DSC radios are simply a normal VHF analogue radio with the addition of Digital Selective Calling. This is a digital signalling system only - with the added ability to carry simple messages identifying called & calling set & to send/ collect location data. Nowt else.

The rest of the radio is exactly the same as a "traditional" VHF, that is how they can still talk to each other. And it explains why I will not "upgrade" until my current radio dies.

 

[mcframe]

Other - calling mates

Sending a Position Request to a mate, and getting his position automagically appear as a waypoint on my plotter for a breakfast rendezvous ;-)

(Both using SH radios, my plotter is SH)

Edit: But I've never used my callsign...

 

[Babylon]

Please get this straight;
DSC radios are simply a normal VHF analogue radio with the addition of Digital Selective Calling. This is a digital signalling system only - with the added ability to carry simple messages identifying called & calling set & to send/ collect location data. Nowt else.

The rest of the radio is exactly the same as a "traditional" VHF, that is how they can still talk to each other. And it explains why I will not "upgrade" until my current radio dies.

We know this. While I happen to agree with you re continuing to use my own trad VHF without DSC-capability, what I'm trying to establish is what proportion of people who have DSC VHFs fitted actually use any of the DSC-specific functions and which ones.

 

[Ex-SolentBoy]

I have a very nice icom VHF dsc but the manual for it is almost incomprehensible. In a way that is not surprising, as it's buttons and menus are also far too complicated for irregular or casual use.

We are all used to mobile phones. My iPhone does email, voice and data calls and a whole lot else and I use it without any manuals. When they start making VHF radios that are as easy to use as a phone, then perhaps we will make use of their features.

 

[Searush]

We know this. While I happen to agree with you re continuing to use my own trad VHF without DSC-capability, what I'm trying to establish is what proportion of people who have DSC VHFs fitted actually use any of the DSC-specific functions and which ones.

YOU may know it, but some of the comments on these threads imply that people think it is a Digital radio, that it uses a different "network" (there is no network, calls are all broadcast as VHF over the airwaves), that you can have "private conversations" or it has other magical properties.

I am simply trying to manage expectations.

 

[RestlessL]

I don't often sail in company, so don't make many VHF calls. My main use is to call ahead to marina's and I have never seen one publish an mmsi number.

When in company, I use DSC in preference to Ch16, one benefit being that a DSC call does not demand an immediate response.

Also, I sail short-handed most of the time, and have a HH DSC for the helm to carry in case of accident. Of all the ways of finding an MOB I recon that this is the most likely to succeed.

John

 

[Lucky Duck]

The more posts I read on forums regarding DSC radio's and their use, the more I become convinced that few people who have DSC radios and post on fora have attended a full SRC course or indeed read and understood the manual which came with their radio. Many people who do not have DSC sets are not aware of all the advantages available.

Based on the standard of procedure that I have heard over the years I suspect a significant minority of VHF users have not been near any kind of formal training so I doubt the population of boats with DSC enabled radios will be any different.