DSC Radio Alarm

[Gary Fox]

Surely it is incumbent on all who think they know how to work their DSC radios to encourage understanding in others by making DSC calls to the poor ignorami. Calls should ideally be timed for tacks, mooring manouevres, and other moments of stress for maximum learning opportunity. MMSIs can be gleaned from AIS, ITU database and probably elsewhere. There is at least one boat of my acquaintance that has learned how to tell me to sod off this summer.

Amusing.. but you don't go far enough!
Expert level would be waiting until off-watch crew are getting some vital sleep, and waking them up. After a few alarms you can sit back and let events unfold...watch them making unforced errors, stumbling, underwear on back to front, forgetting basic skills, spilling pots in the galley, poor night vision (a side effect of sleep deprivation); getting snappy with each other, and a bonus point if they come to blows.

You get the point, and in my view a skipper's duty is to his own crew and vessel first, 2nd and 3rd, followed at a distance by keeping a DSC alarm watch for random strangers.
It's best to get a non-DSC VHF to use in parallel or instead, as you see fit; and I have bought one for this very purpose.

 

[SaltIre]

Surely it is incumbent on all who think they know how to work their DSC radios to encourage understanding in others by making DSC calls to the poor ignorami. Calls should ideally be timed for tacks, mooring manouevres, and other moments of stress for maximum learning opportunity. MMSIs can be gleaned from AIS, ITU database and probably elsewhere. There is at least one boat of my acquaintance that has learned how to tell me to sod off this summer.

Sod off.

 

[capnsensible]

Amusing.. but you don't go far enough!
Expert level would be waiting until off-watch crew are getting some vital sleep, and waking them up. After a few alarms you can sit back and let events unfold...watch them making unforced errors, stumbling, underwear on back to front, forgetting basic skills, spilling pots in the galley, poor night vision (a side effect of sleep deprivation); getting snappy with each other, and a bonus point if they come to blows.

You get the point, and in my view a skipper's duty is to his own crew and vessel first, 2nd and 3rd, followed at a distance by keeping a DSC alarm watch for random strangers.
It's best to get a non-DSC VHF to use in parallel or instead, as you see fit; and I have bought one for this very purpose.

You need a better crew. Send them on some RYA courses.

 

[Daydream believer]

Sod off.

Where shall we sod off to o lord?

 

[Graham376]

So basically one does not install the DSC function at all . Yes! I suppose it would be a solution. May as well leave it in the box & not have to listen to those annoying requests for radio checks as well
If my VHF cannot find the GPS, it starts bleeping, so that can be annoying as well

I find the alarm annoying particularly when it's a coastal station announcing routine matters, Tarifa often does it. It does appear that some if not all DSC radios can be used as standard non-DSC sets if just plugged in and not programmed, I've found that with one XM and two Cobras. I suppose it can be useful if someone needs a new radio before doing the DSC license upgrade but pointless otherwise.

It's many years since I made a ship to ship DSC call so suspect I would need to check the manual if wanting to do it again.

 

[SaltIre]

You need a better crew. Send them on some RYA courses.

Will they learn how to put on their own boxers rather than try to get into ladies' panties?

 

[Gary Fox]

You need a better crew. Send them on some RYA courses.

Ha ha, which course will teach them how to sleep through alarms? Alcohol is not always available.

 

[Refueler]

Amusing.. but you don't go far enough!
Expert level would be waiting until off-watch crew are getting some vital sleep, and waking them up. After a few alarms you can sit back and let events unfold...watch them making unforced errors, stumbling, underwear on back to front, forgetting basic skills, spilling pots in the galley, poor night vision (a side effect of sleep deprivation); getting snappy with each other, and a bonus point if they come to blows.

You get the point, and in my view a skipper's duty is to his own crew and vessel first, 2nd and 3rd, followed at a distance by keeping a DSC alarm watch for random strangers.
It's best to get a non-DSC VHF to use in parallel or instead, as you see fit; and I have bought one for this very purpose.

Nice to see you take your rescue obligations seriously ...................... hope you never have to be rescued and rely on DSC / MMSI ...

 

[Refueler]

Fair comment.
Memory failure so I may be wrong here.
I do not have 2 licenses. As far as I recall the MMSI is added to the VHF license. I do not have mine handy as it is on the boat so I cannot check if it is actually printed. I do not believe it is. Only the call sign. I have notified OFCOM but do not have any additional license. The MMSI for EPIRB etc comes with the unit & as far as I remember is recorded on the online portal. When it was first introduced it was a real faff. Perhaps the site has improved since
I had forgotten about that.

As far as I remember when the Ship Station license changed - I don't remember having any display item as I used to have ... similar to UK car tax disc. But I had a bunch of paperwork to keep filed. I printed a small paper to stick in the window so any nosey official over here could see boat was licenced via OFCOM
Since having to change from SSR to Latvian Registry - SSR requires UK residency and can ask proof of bills etc - I had to change to Latvian Licence .... which changed my MMSI and ITU listing ... and unfortunately its annual (about 24 Euros a year) .. similarly only filed paperwork and a large A4 certificate.

 

[Daydream believer]

There are actually TWO licences .... your Operators Licence and the Ship Station Licence.
Maybe being in UK and having the Lifetime issued Licence for the Ship Station - you've forgotten ?

So where do you get your MMSI number from then ?

In UK - its OFCOM ... in Latvia its VAS .... on behalf of ITU.

Handhelds are listed along with the Fixed stations ... AIS Tx's ...

That was case when I was UK and Ofcom ... its case now with where I am now ...

I checked on board my boat this weekend & I apologise.
I was totally wrong about not having 2 licenses. Total brain fade but I must have been on the ball at some time in the past.

I have my personal VHF license, PLUS a ships license, which covers my hand held VHF, AIS, EPIRB & My main VHF. The MMSI for each ( not the hand held) is given, as is my station call sign.
I note that it was last updated in 2014 when I added my AIS.
Then there is the OFCOM letter re ATIS for use in Dutch waters. But I have never bothered to refer to it,

 

[Refueler]

I checked on board my boat this weekend & I apologise.
I was totally wrong about not having 2 licenses. Total brain fade but I must have been on the ball at some time in the past.

I have my personal VHF license, PLUS a ships license, which covers my hand held VHF, AIS, EPIRB & My main VHF. The MMSI for each ( not the hand held) is given, as is my station call sign.
I note that it was last updated in 2014 when I added my AIS.
Then there is the OFCOM letter re ATIS for use in Dutch waters. But I have never bothered to refer to it,

Apologise ? No Need ... honest.

We all have brain fade at times ...

You are lucky though - in UK ... Ship Licence is indefinite ... over here its annual.

Stay Safe ...

 

[Yorkshire Exile]

Thanks for the many helpful responses. Some responses I found less helpful. I can only dream of one day being as well trained, knowledgeable, experienced and righteous as a minority of contributors to this post.

 

[surfernan]

Does turning the squelch up limit the range of receiving dsc channel 70 ?

 

[Gary Fox]

Does turning the squelch up limit the range of receiving dsc channel 70 ?

Excellent question. Squelch is used to get rid of background noise. I don't think annoying noise is an issue to DSC software.
So my educated guess is, no it doesn't . Happy to be proved wrong though.

 

[Daydream believer]

. I can only dream of one day being as well trained, knowledgeable, experienced and righteous as a minority of contributors to this post.

So it is back to post #1 & stop there then is it

 

[jwfrary]

Excellent question. Squelch is used to get rid of background noise. I don't think annoying noise is an issue to DSC software.
So my educated guess is, no it doesn't . Happy to be proved wrong though.

Your guess is correct, dsc circuitry is independent of the the adjustable squelch

 

[Refueler]

Your guess is correct, dsc circuitry is independent of the the adjustable squelch

Would be a bit daft if it wasn't ....

 

[Roberto]

Occasionally, like today, the radio emits an ear splitting alarm which gradually increases in volume. Invariably it happens when I am single handed and in the middle of a tricky manouvere. I press various buttons then turn it off to retain my sanity. What is it, or somebody, telling me and what action should I take?

If you just want to silence the alarm, a simple push of the PTT button (the lever you push on the microphone before talking) will usually do the trick. Surely, best take a look at the display to have an idea what the alert was about, in Galicia there are dsc alerts for every weather bulletin, sometimes one has the odd more significant one.

 

[Black Sheep]

And there you have a wonderful example of the usability of DSC sets.

Like others, I have been driven crazy by the loud alarm on a DSC set that I couldn't silence, no matter what I tried; there is no hint what to do when looking at the thing. What never, ever, occurred to me was that the answer was to try to transmit, when the set has just tuned itself to Channel 16 for a possible Mayday.

Of course I never had a chance of hearing any Mayday because it was totally blotted out by the alarm.

My solution was to rip out the unusable pile of junk, and replace it with a simple old-fashioned VHF, that simple old me can understand.

Yes, I do monitor ch16 (unless in port, when I monitor port operations). The difference is that I can actually hear a Mayday if in range and I can (and have) respond.

 

[lustyd]

There's an acknowledge and cancel button on most sets, both of which will silence an alarm. You can usually also set them to only sound an audible alarm for emergencies, so if you're getting position requests and weather announcements take a look in the menu.

Please don't use the transmit button to silence it, you could be interrupting a Mayday.

If you have your alarms set up properly, then any time it sounds there is an emergency so a good time to pay attention. Again, if set up properly your plotter will show you the GPS location of the emergency, this means you no longer need to take it down and manually plot on the chart, you can just see it's 20 NM away and get on with your day while keeping a listening watch just in case. If it's 0.5NM away you can then select the waypoint it creates and navigate straight to it while responding.