Mike Martin, how many peolple have been prosecuted

[trev]

'Faulty radio equipment could have a dire effect'. I cant think of any 'dire effects' brought about by correctly installed and operated equipment, especially from the US of A. There are probably more US made VHFs around the world than other country manufactures - This whole business is obviously one of trade protection and it stinks !

<hr width=100% size=1>Trev

 

[bedouin]

Re: Mike Martin, how many peolple have been prosec

You misunderstand.

I was expressing support for the need for a standard. Also it is not unreasonable to have a technical standard to ensure designs are safe. In the EU that is CE marking, and I think USA have an equivalent FCC standard.

It is up to the manufacturers to decide where they go through the process of getting their equipment CE marked

What would seem sensible would be for FCC and EU to agree a common standard - or at least accept each other's standards

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[kimhollamby]

The problem is...

...there's not a good history of US and Europe accepting each other's standards. US boatbuilders have to build to RCD for example and Europe builders to US Coast Guard. There might be some degree of co-operation over engine emission standards in future, but the reality at the moment is that California is driving the US regs and Bodensee has been driving the EU ones. Other US regs are also likely to throw a curved ball in the future on a variety of consumer goods, so not all exactly one-way traffic although if Brusselcrats can insist on straight bananas then we know there are many issues closer to home.

There is also a great history of trade wrangles and we have another one hovering around in the background concerning the steel tariff. When last I checked boating products were still on the list to get penalised if US and Europe don't resolve differences over steel production subsidies and tariffs.

No equipment manufacturer I know of wants to have to build to different standards...they want to put one product down the line to one single standard and produce the maximum volume that a global market can sustain. Consumers are losing out in all parts of the globe -- thanks to the fragmented state of the EU that's more us on this side of the Atlantic than US consumers who have 50 per cent of the world's marine industry sat right within their particular union.

Blame UK politicians, or Brusselcrats, or ourselves for putting them there...but this issue is a political one first and foremost.



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[MainlySteam]

Re: Mike Martin, how many peolple have been prosec

<<<What would seem sensible would be for FCC and EU to agree a common standard - or at least accept each other's standards >>>

Not sure that it is up to the USA to change its ways. I cannot really believe that the USA boatowner, or those in the rest of the non EU world, would want to purchase an expensive, politically contrived EU set when they have such a range of better priced ones to choose from to meet their own particular recreational needs.

The fact is it is the EU which is at odds with the other 6 billion people in the world, not just with the USA, with respect to the pleasure vessel market for VHF's. The rest of the world is already happy to share the same standards, it is the EU that has taken its own road excluding the rest (or perhaps more correctly stated, "excluding itself"). In fact, most of the rest of the world can use EU sets as well as the great range of others available to them and which are never seen in the EU. The international sets and EU sets will readily achieve type approval in countries outside of the EU, but the majority of international sets will never be regarded by the EU as functionally competent to do so within the EU (ie it is not just a case of getting them CE marked it is a case of them not meeting the functional requirements of the EU).

The rest of us, as non EU domiciled vessels, can also operate our sets in the EU whether they are CE marked or not, and I do not think anyone is claiming that that is unsafe.

In the end the average recreational user is not a radio operator, only wants a mounted set with a red button he can push if in distress, maybe program or very casually enter some MMSI's, and be able to ask his mate how the fishing or whatever is. Most also have boats under 20 foot in length and unless they are to be forced into handholds, want a very compact DSC VHF (such as the non EU compact Icoms, Standard Horizons, Raymarines, etc, etc, etc).

Surely those things are the basis of the angst being expressed on the recent threads?

John

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[JonBrooks]

I was not commenting on the question but the following post having a dig at Mike for not coming up with the answer over night.
He will, I am sure, in his own sweet time answer what he can.

Sorry for the confusion.

Regards

<hr width=100% size=1>Jon Brooks Icom UK Ltd. 01227 741741

 

[MainlySteam]

Jon - Whats going to happen with IEC 62238

Now that IEC 62238, as I understand it, has lessened the requirements for VHF Class D so that neither a separate receiver for watching CH70 nor a keypad is no longer required, do you know if the EU is going to compromise (or has already done so) to accept IEC 62238, thus allowing manufacturers such as yourselves to present an international range which the EU will also accept, or are they going to stay with the superceded requirements?

John

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[JonBrooks]

Re: Jon - Whats going to happen with IEC 62238

John

Sorry to say I can't answer that.
It is not down to us.

I have my own personel concerns over this move if it happens.
I like Class D as it is, that is from and end user not from me as "The Man From Icom"
I can see how it would benefit all if they did go for it.

Regards

<hr width=100% size=1>Jon Brooks Icom UK Ltd. 01227 741741

 

[Heckler]

point i have consistently

put forward and got knocked for it but yes it would appear it is true!
stu

<hr width=100% size=1>http://www.beneteau-owners-association.org.uk

 

[Heckler]

well said

my thoughts in a nice big nutshell
stu

<hr width=100% size=1>http://www.beneteau-owners-association.org.uk

 

[Heckler]

yawn yawn,

.

<hr width=100% size=1>http://www.beneteau-owners-association.org.uk

 

[bigmart]

Re: yawn yawn,

Seems to be your response to anyone who makes a sensible argument to your unreasonable attacks & suggests that you treat people with a modicum of respect.

Like I have said before, your response says a great deal about you, shame none of its positive.

I wish I was an Entrepreneur. Then I would always be right.

Martin

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[qsiv]

Re: The problem is...

.. or even blame the Americans, for yet again ignoring internationally agreed standards, and just assuming that because they are bigger they are necessarily right. The pursuit of profit at all costs doesn't always yield the best value for consumers. Unsafe cars, both histoprically and currently, space rockets that ignore safety warnings that would ground aircraft, carbon emissions that put them to shame - the list goes on and on.

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[qsiv]

Re: Mike Martin, how many peolple have been prosec

What I find really laughable is that since 1996, in the Atlantic Sector, there have been a total of 1930 DSC alerts (on both VHF and HF/MF), of which just 22 were real alerts and not false alarms. USCG <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.navcen.uscg.gov/marcomms/gmdss/AStats9699.pdf>document</A> refers. All this hiatus and upheaval for so little demand strikes me as quite astonishing! As a result of the exceptional value of this system (!) "the FCC requires that all new VHF and MF/HF maritime radiotelephones type accepted after June 1999 to have at least a basic DSC capability."

Also note that none of the GMDSS radios are technically compliant without a link to an external GPS system - a number of these radios are fitted to boats so small that they dont require a GPS. As a result the USCG have downgraded the ITU spec, to allow manual input of position every 4 hours... Furthermore NO US yachts have to fit any kind of GMDSS radio at all!

This FAQ on the USCG site also looks reassuring !!!!

Question: I just purchased a VHF marine radio equipped with digital selective calling. Will the U.S. Coast Guard receive my DSC distress alert? If not, who will?

Answer: No. Until the Coast Guard is able to upgrade its VHF National Distress System (expected by about 2006) or install this equipment on its own cutters, the Coast Guard has no means of receiving a VHF DSC distress alert. Rescue agencies in Europe and others providing a GMDSS Sea Area A1 service can however receive an alert. Seagoing cargo and passenger vessels should also be capable of receiving an alert. The Coast Guard can however receive a distress alert from a DSC-equipped HF marine radio.

I also note that all radios fitted to US vessels must have passed FCC - so no real difference to EU sets passing CE and/or type approvals.


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[pvb]

Is Mike Martin on holiday, perhaps?

Otherwise he'd surely have answered by now.

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[MainlySteam]

Re: Mike Martin, how many peolple have been prosec

The USA, like the majority of the world's nations, has not declared a Sea Area A1. The USCG can make no other response than the one given in the FAQ. There again, some countries have declared a Sea Area A1 eg UK, but do not have enough confidence in it to let it operate as it should (ie there should not be any need in a declared area for a voice distress call to be made on CH16 immediately following a DSC alert).

The USA has followed the ITU recommendation that only DSC fixed mount VHF sets be sold in its jurisdiction except, as far as I am aware, that sets in production before the recommendation remain able to be sold.

It is a fact that the USA, just as most countries of the world, including the UK as far as I am aware, does not require the mandatory carriage of VHF of any sort on pleasure vessels (they are voluntarily equipped if so fitted).

There is actually a big difference between the USA FCC type approval requirements and those of the EU countries as the EU has required the (now) old Class D functionality. Every other country in the world has a requirement similar to the FCC's which does not.

The requirements of the old Class D (which the EU insisted on, contrary not only to the USA but to the rest of the world) for a separate watch receiver on CH70 are technically redundant in most pleasure instances. The only case where it is not technically trivial to maintain the watch with a single receiver set is whilst it is transmitting. However, in that case there is only an advantage in a two receiver set if the watch receiver has its own dedicated antenna (ie the vessel has two VHF antennas), and many sets on the EU pleasure market did not have provision for that (there is no requirement to). For those that did (the Icom ones, for example) I would be quite confident that for the vast majority of pleasure vessel installations the watch antenna was not fitted leading to an inferior installation. It now seems with IEC 62238 the IEC has seen this, as well as the keypad, as being a redundant requirement for voluntarily equipped vessels also and revamped Class D to suit.

The changes to Class D now mean that apart from trivial matters likely to affect both EU and non EU sets, Class D now reflects the functionality which has been incorporated in the "international" sets not the EU ones. While there will be claims that this has lowered the safety standards such claims are untrue and display a lack of knowledge of radio engineering - a Class D set with 2 receivers is only significantly superior in the dual antenna circumstances set out above, and those circumstances are hardly ever met in the pleasure market and were not mandatory in the EU anyway. Safety will in fact be improved if small vessels prevented from fitting EU DSC fixed mount sets because of budget, physical space (on very small vessels) or complexity of operation are allowed to fit the new Class D radios.

It would seem to me that the EU is now in the position of either accepting the new standard (which would be annoying to those who have already paid more for the old Class D sets after being denied access to simpler ones) or will have to create its own quasi "Class D" standard.

John


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[pvb]

Good post.

Few people have ever considered the dual antennae issue.

 

[JonBrooks]

Re: Mike Martin, how many peolple have been prosec

Whilst you post has some good points I have to comment re twin antenna's.
Due to the number of calls I get asking for recomend 2nd antenna in respect top the number of DSC units we have sold, from Icom's point of veiw most have the watching keeping antenna fitted for leisure craft.
In fact if you don't fit it the DSC will not work correctly.
The end user will not recieve DSC massages at all.

As far as I am aware there is no "old Class D" but there is some changes to allow single antenna units for pleasure craft, still class D. If they had not the likes of some of the competitions radio's would never made it to the EU market place. Class D (with twin antenna) is standard for all commercial boats all over the world inc the USA under GMDSS.

Regards

<hr width=100% size=1>Jon Brooks Icom UK Ltd. 01227 741741

 

[MainlySteam]

Re: Mike Martin, how many peolple have been prosec

Thanks for your comments Jon, especially regarding the pleasure vessel enquiries about the second antenna.

Just for clarification my usage of "Class D" was rather loose to avoid using standards numbers, but in the EU sense was with EN 301025 in mind, and "old Class D" mainly in the sense of IEC pre IEC 62238.

Regards

John



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[Jaguar]

Re: quite right

The issue is not whether the radio is 'safe'. It is to do with the testing that the radios undergo and also the ferquencies available. Radio equipment destined for the EU must comply with the EU's requirements for electromagnetic interference. These testing requirements are different to that of the US.

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