Holyhead Coastguard Radio Antenna Locations

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crown22

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Was near Lancaster today with my new Cobra VHF Handheld and was surprised to hear Holyhead Coastguard on Channel 16.About 70 miles away? They must have "relay" transmitters? Maybe they are maintaining radio watch across all of the middle Irish Sea with no Liverpool or Fleetwood coastguard stations. Very re-assuring to hear anyway.
 
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crown22 said:
Was near Lancaster today with my new Cobra VHF Handheld and was surprised to hear Holyhead Coastguard on Channel 16.About 70 miles away? They must have "relay" transmitters? Maybe they are maintaining radio watch across all of the middle Irish Sea with no Liverpool or Fleetwood coastguard stations. Very re-assuring to hear anyway.
Click to expand...

Yes they are listening to all of the Irish Sea (on our side at least). They have multiple transmitter sites.

Map here: https://ukradioscanning.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=5780#p31616
 
crown22 said:
Was near Lancaster today with my new Cobra VHF Handheld and was surprised to hear Holyhead Coastguard on Channel 16.About 70 miles away?
Click to expand...

I'd be disappointed if you couldn't hear them as you're in their area these days. Liverpool are no more so HH has all their transmitters. The one on the IoM covers a huge area and is cleary audible well up the Antrim coast. You can usually tell which transmitter is clearest when they broadcast the channels for the weather forecast.
 
I've looked at the list of CG antenna, and managed to get it into .cvs format so I can see it in Excel.
I have little interest in getting the positions into Google maps, but it would be very useful to get the positions onto my Raymarine e series plotters as way points.
It would be useful because I often here the CG say listen on the xxxx antenna, but I have no idea where that is.
Is there and easy way to get the positions and station names, into a waypoint format I can load onto an SD card and display on a Raymarine system.
 
Ian_Edwards said:
I've looked at the list of CG antenna, and managed to get it into .cvs format so I can see it in Excel.
I have little interest in getting the positions into Google maps, but it would be very useful to get the positions onto my Raymarine e series plotters as way points.
It would be useful because I often here the CG say listen on the xxxx antenna, but I have no idea where that is.
Is there and easy way to get the positions and station names, into a waypoint format I can load onto an SD card and display on a Raymarine system.
Click to expand...
Ian

Does Raymarine read GPX or GPS format? You might be able to read your CSV format into some mapping software and do the conversion there or get the file format and manually enter the name and lat and long in the correct elements of the file. A job I will be doing.

Thanks to all those who did this work. I'm planning a round the UK trip next summer and this will be useful.
 
The more recent Raymarine systems can read and write GPX formats, so the problem is how to get the .csv file into .gpx.
I've downloaded GPSbabel, which should be able to do this conversion, but I'm having problems understanding how to use it.
Can anyone point me to a simple tutorial or a decent used manual for GPSbabel?
GPSbabel seems to be quite comprehensive of the different conversion on offer, but I don't find it at all user friendly.
 
As a previous reply, both Holyhead and Belfast have repeater transmission and reception via Snaefell on the Isle of Man.
 
This is the format of the .csv file, three columns, Name, Latitude, Longitude. Both Lat and long are fully decimalised.

Like this, just the first few lines of the file:

NameLatitudeLongitude
Arisaig :62
56.9188​
-5.8302​
Auchindaul
56.88​
-5.0117​
Banff
57.6333​
-2.5167​
Barra
57.0168​
-7.5​
Bawdsey
52.9935​
1.4082​
Beer Head :64
50.691​
-3.1068​
Belfast MRCC
54.6642​
-5.669​
Ben Tongue
58.4947​
-4.3967​
Berry Head :10
50.3995​
-3.49​
Is there a better way to convert .csv files to .gpx, than GPSbabel?

I'm just looking for a simple way to do a "one off" conversion.
I use to use Navionics NavPlanner 4, which did all this kind of stuff for me, but it's not supported now and doesn't seem to run on WIndows 10.
 
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Ian_Edwards said:
Is there a better way to convert .csv files to .gpx, than GPSbabel?
Click to expand...
I've had a VERY brief play this evening.

I stuck the first three lines of your table in a CSV file. Called cg.csv
Name, Lat, Long,
Arisaig :62, 56.9188, -5.3082,
Auchindal, 56.88, -5.0177,
Banff, 57.6333, -2.5167,


I then ran this through command line (I'm on linux but the same should work in windows)..

gpsbabel -i unicsv -f cg.csv -o gpx -F cg.gpx

I can get this GPX file
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<gpx version="1.0" creator="GPSBabel - GPSBabel: convert, upload, download data from GPS and Map programs" xmlns="GPX: the GPS Exchange Format">
<time>2020-11-17T22:57:52.274Z</time>
<bounds minlat="56.880000000" minlon="-5.308200000" maxlat="57.633300000" maxlon="-2.516700000"/>
<wpt lat="56.918800000" lon="-5.308200000">
<name>Arisaig :62</name>
<cmt>Arisaig :62</cmt>
<desc>Arisaig :62</desc>
</wpt>
<wpt lat="56.880000000" lon="-5.017700000">
<name>Auchindal</name>
<cmt>Auchindal</cmt>
<desc>Auchindal</desc>
</wpt>
<wpt lat="57.633300000" lon="-2.516700000">
<name>Banff</name>
<cmt>Banff</cmt>
<desc>Banff</desc>
</wpt>
</gpx>
 
GPX format may need some tweaks but if that works you should be able to do it. Watch the field names in the CSV.

Or attach the file and I can run it
 
Just as a matter of interest here is a map of marine VHF marine radio resources in West Oz. Ignore mention 27mhz channels as thery are going out in favour of VHF.
Note the use of true repeaters. Using ch 81 and 82 where the repeater un manned station sends your signal to the main manned station so extending range. Note Turner hill is miles from the sea but on a high hill such as to give wide coverage over coastline. https://www.seakayakwa.asn.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/2015VMRSradioComGuide.pdf
 
JasmineCornish said:
To tell you the truth, I'm still using CB base station antennas because of the long trips I have, cb radio is pretty useful and convenient to use in this case.
Click to expand...
Hello Jasine
I am a bit confused by your post. As far as I know CB comes in 2 flavours 27mhz and UHF. (My experience is for Australia) Neither type of CB base station antenna is suitable for Marine VHF Of course if you have another person on the other end of a CB link you can use it all very well but ordinary marine VHF has the listening stations and the infrastructure for emergencies. Now just to confuse things in Oz we have/had a marine radio band of 27mhz which is right next to 27mhz CB band and CB radios were modified (in the factory) and became the 27mhz marine band radio. (because they were cheap) This option is being withdrawn in lieu of ordinary VHF marine only slightly more expensive. So use a marne VHF antenna for marine VHF on your boat. Use CB radio as well if you wish for any purpose. Or have i got you posat really confused? ol'will PS you can make your own marine VHF antenna google under ham VHF antenna and put in the marine frequencies.
 
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