dreamcatcher and Channel 16 (NEWBIE SO STAND BY)

[craigbalsillie]

I was listening into Radio 5 Live on the way to work this morning and heard a story about a boat which had set off from Norfolk (ish) area this morning and was broadcasting on VHF Channel 16 constatntly and no shipping in the area was able to use this channel ...
A lifeboat was despatched from somehwere in Norfolk in hot pusuit of the craft,,,
They could hear northern (possibly scottish) accents chatting away oblivious to the furore they were causing....

I wondered, as a newbie, if they would be in trouble for this.. is there a chance that lives could be put at risk becuase of this..

That was the impression that the 5 live presenters were giving...


Also, if any forumites know the owner of an Oceanis called Dreamcatcher, I past it southbound on the M74 last night...
Not sure where they are moving it to but at 1930 last night it was pulling into Bothwell Services...



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[VicMallows]

I guess it's so quiet generally on the airwaves up in Lanarkshire that this makes news. Down here in the Solent practically no day (and certainly no weekend in season) goes by without at least 1 instance of Ch16 carrier. They often send the helicopter up to look for the culprit.

The cause is nearly always a weak contact in the fist mike ... they usually use cheap leaf springs rather than proper microswitches; or the mike has fallen out of its holder and got jamed in the on position.

Instead of all the DSC hooha (already dated technology) why not insist that all new VHF sets have a built in transmit cut-off after, say, 2 minutes. All it would need is release/repress the Press-to-Talk to reset it if one really needs to transmit for longer.

Vic



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[sailorman]

WHY A LIFEBOAT
WHAT A WASTE OF RESORCES @ NO COST TO THE AUTHORITIES

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[Jools_of_Top_Cat]

Last summer in Pwllheli the same happened, for nearly 2 hours the coastguard and lifeboat tried to trace the source. The appeared to have great difficulty DF'ing the carrier, which I did find a little concerning.

The vessel was listening to the radio and I think they got the station to request boats in the area to check their gear, to no avail.

In the end it turned out to be a boat in the marina, but as the CG and marina staff began walking the pontoons the signal stoppped, I don't think they ever did find who it was. I seem to remember the lifeboat used her loud hailer to try and get attention to the problem, again to no avail.

Yes lives could be at risk, while 16 is being broadcast on no one else in that area will be able to get through, as everyone it seems leaves their radios switched to 25W permanently. If left on 1W for routine traffic, lets be honest that is normally quite adequate, as you will be calling local to your marinas etc. then should an emergency have happened, the vessel could have transmitted over the weaker signal.



<hr width=100% size=1>Julian

<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.topcatsail.co.uk>Top Cat Homepage</A>

 

[craigbalsillie]

and there was me thinking Radio 5 Live was a national radio channel run by the BBC.




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[rowan]

Re: 25w?

All VHF sets I've come accross go automatically to 25w when on ch 16, so unless the carrier had left his set tuned to another freq than ch16, in which case it wouldn't be a problem to safety and emergency work, he'd be transmitting on 25w whatever the setting on the unit.

So that widnae work!

Colin

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[l'escargot]

More on it <A target="_blank" HREF=http://makeashorterlink.com/?O17925C87>here</A>

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[VicMallows]

Thanks for the link to full story.......so many news channels no hope of keeping up. As before, not unfamiliar, but terrible on a commercial ship. And of course they were obviously not listening 16 either. Wonder how the DSC spec addresses such problems?

Vic

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