elton
Well-Known Member
The MMSI number belongs to the boat, not the owner.
MMSI Number changing cost
- Thread starter dgadee
- Start date
The MMSI number belongs to the boat, not the owner.
JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
Or a second hand radio? Or a radio moved from one boat to another?
I have just bought a vessel which has a Ship Radio licence. How do I transfer it into my name?
You can’t. Licences are non-transferable as a call sign and MMSI number stays with a vessel much like the number plate of a car.
You will therefore need to apply for a new licence in your name, retaining the particulars of the vessel.
http://ask.ofcom.org.uk/help/spectrum/sratrans
You can’t. Licences are non-transferable as a call sign and MMSI number stays with a vessel much like the number plate of a car.
You will therefore need to apply for a new licence in your name, retaining the particulars of the vessel.
http://ask.ofcom.org.uk/help/spectrum/sratrans
dgadee
Well-Known Member
Can't remember exactly, but perhaps it was because I am Part 1 registered. I would have to look up the communications, but I received a new MMSI number and had to pay to have the radio reset with that number. If I hadn't received a new MMSI number I would not have changed it.
elton
Well-Known Member
Not very common, I'd have thought. Certainly not common enough to justify circulation of instruction on how to circumvent a locked number. They're locked to limit the saleability of stolen radios, which is a great feature IMO.
JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
My boat is Part 1 registered and I definitely did not have to change MMSI (or callsign) when I bought her. Did you remember to tell Ofcom that the boat already had an MMSI number? Did you get a new callsign too?
Is that a major problem, or at least one bad enough to distort the second hand market? As many people upgrade from VHS+DSC to DSC+DSC+AIS I would expect there to a be significant number of used sets for sale.
elton
Well-Known Member
It's a problem that need not exist. Let them pay the dealer to do the job, or figure it out for themselves. I just can't see the point in helping people I'm never going to meet, and have never helped me or anyone else I know, to circumvent a legitimate deterrent to thievery. It crosses my mind that some provide the info because it makes them feel clever, and for no other reason.
prv
Well-Known Member
No, it doesn't. It stays with the boat. When you buy a boat you will need to take out a new station license, and when you do so you should specify the existing MMSI and callsign. Your new license will then use the same number and there's no need to change the radio.
Only reason to change a radio is if you buy it second-hand or you re-flag the boat, as the first three digits are a country code. So for example Ofcom won't be able to issue you a UK station license reusing an MMSI that was originally issued by L'Office Francais de Radio-Bureaucracy.
Pete
prv
Well-Known Member
Radio licenses are nothing to do with vessel registration. Sounds to me like you omitted to specify the existing MMSI and callsign when you took out the station license, so you got issued a new one.
If you haven't changed the radio yet, you could cancel the current license and take out another, providing the existing details, for free on the Ofcom website. Then you can leave the radio as it is.
EDIT: This is assuming you bought a second-hand boat with an existing radio. Just re-read the thread and you've bought a second-hand radio, so yes the number will need to change. You can't change your station license to use the MMSI of someone else's boat just because it's programmed into the radio you bought from them.
Pete
Last edited:
prv
Well-Known Member
That's a justification made up after the fact. The ITU doesn't care about theft from leisure vessels (they mostly forget that we exist at all). They wrote the restrictions on MMSI change into the DSC standard because they were very pleased with themselves for coming up with a unique station ID that would (they thought, fondly imagining hails on Ch16 becoming a thing of the past) be used for all calls, and they didn't want people changing them willy-nilly and confusing things in their perfect theoretical world.
Pete
duncan99210
Well-Known Member
Didn't when I registered mine: I used the call sign and MMSI and Ofcom simply up dated it to show me as the owner, not the guy I bought it from.
dgadee
Well-Known Member
So it costs more than the radio might be worth to stop it from being stolen? Not very economically effective insurance unless you have at least two radios stolen.
colind3782
Well-Known Member
I had to change the MMSI or buy a new radio when I bought a Spanish boat and put it on the UK SSR. It was an older set and I couldn't find a dealer to change it for me. Luckily, a forumite, ahem, pointed me in the right direction and I was able to change it myself.
JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
I very much doubt that it deters thieves; it simply reduces the prices they receive, post theft, and makes live more complicated and more expensive for the people who have a legitimate reason to reset MMSIs. Deterrent to theft my foot - it's a money making scam, and if I had relevant information I would spread it without a blush.
ditchcrawler
Well-Known Member
I upgraded my Icom DSC to a Standard Horizon DSC with AIS (which I use to feed my Vesper AIS display).As part of the deal when I purchased the S/H the nice people at the chandlers here in Suffolk deleted the MMSI from the Icom which enabled me to sell it to a friend.They said it only took a matter of minutes using a computer lead that they have ,which I would guess many other dealers also have (at least for Icoms)
We bought our current boat in Germany.
When I put her on SSR and registered her with OFCOM, they issued us with another MMSI as apparently these things are country specific.
Couldn't have a German MMSI on a UK registered boat.
EugeneR
Well-Known Member
Some brands and models e.g. some Raymarine and some Silva/Nexus? ones require a combination of keys to be held down during power-on to enter the configuration menu from where you can re-set the MMSI.
Maybe try a few 2 or 3 button combinations while switching on, you could be lucky?
Maybe try a few 2 or 3 button combinations while switching on, you could be lucky?