New VHF format goes live on 2nd January

[Solitaire]

First time I have had a chance to respond, but I have been following the thread. In many ways I agree with both points of view. From a leisure vessel standpoint it should be remembered that it does actual fall under the voluntary code. DSC, which forms part of the GMDSS (Global Maritime Safety System) was really set up for the commercial world and all vessels over 300 gross tons must be fully compliant. As a coded vessel, I have to have a DSC VHF on-board, but it is not mandatory for the everyday pleasure boater. The fact you can't buy a non DSC radio now is another matter. Do I have any MMSI's stored in my set? No, and I really doubt many others do either. DSC is really only a paging system, yes the newer sets can poll for position and can even interface with the plotter to show a position of a vessel in distress. It won't of course do that for an Urgency call as the position is not sent during such a call.

As to it's function, well I have only used DSC for inter-ship calling once and that was as a test, I have not had to use it for any of what I call the real benefits - distress, urgency or safety - fortunately. It is what it is, the MCA want us to use it were practical, as long as you are not a coded vessel and under 300 gt then if you have the old style licence then it is valid. If you upgrade to a new fixed or H/H that has a DSC function then technically you need to upgrade.

As to the issue raised by Elessar regarding the "revised" Distress or Mayday call, I do agree but again this was agreed by the International Coastguard group and I'm pretty sure it was yet after "several" committee meetings! Do I agree with it? Not for the leisure boater, as has been said nobody apart from us who teach it on a regular basis is likely to remember the "correct" procedure when the **** hits the fan. Are the CG not going to do anything about it because the call was not correct? Of course not, but that does not preclude the theory behind the teaching. It is one of the reason I give all my students a copy of the procedure that is printed on waterproof material and can have your own details added to it by either marker open of, as I do, use dymo tape. If anybody is interested then they can download a copy from here - Mayday Procedure

Interesting discussion though.

 

[Hurricane]

I completely agree.

Take making a distress call. Press red button which transmits MMSI and position, and puts you on 16, full power. So far so good.

You then would think you should say Mayday, I am me, I am here, this is my trouble.

But no, we then have to repeat the information that has just been transmitted, that is not memorable for humans, multiple times. Then we are allowed to say the imprtant stuff. If we haven't sunk already.

Why? The comittee says "AH - what if there are 2 distress calls at the same time, we might confuse them?" In my world, if I wanted to guard against this unlikely event, I would require the voice transmission of the last 3 digits of the MMSI. This 3 digit number is momorable by humans, and would make an unlikely event 1000 times less likely. But no, they insist on beurocratic nonsense.

As for DSC for contacting others, I have no idea how it works. If anything needs a manual to use in a basic manner, it is useless in my world. If it isn't intuitive, I don't use it. I could learn, but I would forget. So I have never transmitted or received a DSC call.

Like you I have been contacted by name many times from AIS transmissions, and never by DSC. I have contacted ships by name many times, and they respond. So they are listening and not relying on DSC.

An opportunity wasted by poor implementation.

Thanks Mark
I have - and do - use DSC for inter ship communication and it is rubbish.
95% of the time when I'm calling someone using DSC, I fail to get a reply and so I will switch to CH16 and call again - usually, it is the voice call that gets a reply.

I've been thinking about this since my last post
I don't know if Powerskipper meant her post seriously but this type of communication was what I was thinking when I made my first post.
Navtex is WAY past its "sell by date"
Imagine if we had a means of text communication using a digital channel over the VHF
After all that is exactly what AIS is and parts of the DSC system
I understand that all these technologies fall into the GMDSS overall wrapper.

There would be all kinds of problems to overcome when implementing a DIGITAL VHF short distance text communications system but I believe it would be worthwhile.
AIS must have had similar constraints when it was initially developed - after all, it uses the same frequencies (with all the problems associated with short distance communications) and has the same potential impact of "overuse" in densely populated areas.
With careful design, I believe you could build a system where all radios that are currently switched on could create a vast intercommunicating network.
Each radio could "repeat" messages and pass them on to another.
I'm sure that constraints would need to be built in - message TTLs (Time to Live) etc so as not to clog up the system.
A hierarchy would mean that Weather Forecasts and Notices to Mariners could be "broadcast" and stored at the receiving station rather like a more modern Navtex system.

Personally, I believe that a system like this would be no more difficult to design than the current AIS where some very clever technology has been implemented.

I'm sure that most will think that this is "overkill" - after all it is just a low cost short range radio system.
Actually, it is this "low cost short range" that I believe would make it most useful.
At the moment. for ship to ship, we currently "text" each other using our mobile phones but this form of communication requires a being in range of the mobile phone network.
In my experience, VHF can operate over greater ranges - shore stations and merchant ships etc, for example, currently transmit AIS over quite long distances - often 40 miles.

In our part of the Med, it is virtually impossible to understand what Palma Radio is saying - partially due to their English accent - partially due to poor signal.
Imagine a SMS style text message coming up on your plotter.

No chance though if something like this were to be designed by intra-governmental bureaucracy.
It would need private enterprise to design a practical solution.

Just a vision
But, IMO, also a missed opportunity - this is the kind of thing that DSC should have been.