Radio check please

Hi Brian.

That's my practise when going x-channel etc, but have never bothered on coastal trips. Would you advise it on longer hops ie. Weymouth-Dartmouth?

<hr width=100% size=1>Think I'll draw some little rabbits on my head, from a distance they might be mistaken for hairs.
 
Re: Passage plan

So: "Solent CG this is yacht AnalRetentive, lodging our passage plan from Chichester marina to Gosport, via Horse Sand fort, eta half past beer o'clock, weather permitting, three people and a small dog on board, how copy? Over......"



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Wouldn't a VSWR meter permanently in line and showing 1-1 VSWR (ideally) be adaquate?

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Well I would like to see the antenna with a VSWR of 1:1! Seriously, a go/no go indicator built in to the transceiver front panel would be better.

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Radio check yes please!

I'm sorry but I have just waded thru this thread & never read such a load of crap
Checking vhf with meters, calling a marina. Etc.etc.!!!!

If you have VHF set installed you need to know that it’s working that is: Transmitting & Receiving. If you get into trouble it is your PRIMARY bit of kit to call for assistance. & if it don't work!!!!!!!!! Brown pants!

A call to the CG on your VHF is the only way to check its working, yes a call to a Marina/Harbour master is ok, but who are you going to call when the sh1t hits the fan?

I agree that a lot of the calls are probably unnecessary, but stuff it, provided I observe the correct protocol and I ain’t just messing about on the river I am going to check my Radio.


<Why do people do this? Do they think that their set has suddenly lost the ability to transmit when they can hear traffic perfectly well> Well actually YES!

The reason I have got on my soapbox is that during a very rough passage to Salcomb last year, I didn’t bother to check my VHF & only when I eventually got into shelter did I find that although I was receiving, my transmit switch was playing up, luckily I new how to repair it, but it would have become immediately apparent if I had done a radio check.
Now supposing my engine failed and I was on a lee shore?? Just cause I didn’t check!


Poter.


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Re: Radio check yes please!

<blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr>

I agree that a lot of the calls are probably unnecessary, but stuff it, provided I observe the correct protocol and I ain’t just messing about on the river I am going to check my Radio.

<hr></blockquote>

Thing is it may be only the CG who hears it. This weekend I ended up switching my set off DW and only monitoring 84 (CG working channel). I am not the only one I am sure. Roll on my DSC set then I will be almost certainly switching off 16 at weekends. I like some silence, the VHF is getting like Radio 1, it never bloody shuts up.

Rant over.

Oh yes, it is always the same vessels, get anyone together from my coastline of choice and I am sure within a few minutes we will be able to give a list of the boats that get onto the radio the moment they step aboard.

YES I had a relaxing weekend lol

<hr width=100% size=1>Julian

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Re: Radio check yes please!

<Thing is it may be only the CG who hears it.>

Err exactly!

Julian I do monitor Ch 16, & I agree that sometimes it does get on your nerves, but DSC asside (I ain't bought one yet) I still have the old fashon notion that should I be able to help a vessel in distress I would go, & I think in that case one can put up with the Idjots./forums/images/icons/crazy.gif

see ya in Cherbourg?

poter

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Re: Radio check yes please!

Some of us may think your post is a load of crap too. Why don't you install an EPIRB? Under GMDSS that should be your primary bit of kit for distress assistance. On the other hand I suppose you would want to set that off every time you went to sea to check that it was working, God help us.

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Re: Radio check yes please!

Could you give a reference for your assertion that an EPIRB should be your primary mechanism for distress calling?

DSC is part of the GMDSS system and has a semi-automatic mechanism for initiating a distress call (a big red button) but that is a VHF based system and if your VHF set is not working then the DSC distress message will not get through.

If you ask the Coastguard whether they would prefer to receive a distress call by DSC/Voice on VHF or via EPIRB I am certain they will say that the Voice/VHF is vastly preferable.


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how many calls? - wild calculations

How many boats in the solent? Several thousand do the round the island race, so maybe it's more than 10,000. 20,000?

The "season" of sailing is only really about 200 days a year. ish. But it's concentrated into weekends and summer - say it's 100 days tops.

The time to call would be "sometime in the morning" - let's say there's a 5-hour period of "starting sailing" or "checking radio" on each of the days in the season.
This makes 500 hours of "setting off" or radio-checking time for sailing boats each year.

So, that would mean 20 calls an hour if there are 10,000 boats, 40 calls an hour for (more likely, i think) 20,000.

There's nothing like that.

Suppose that each boat only calls each time they get new radio gear, praps every five years ish?

For 20,000 boats, that would be 8 calls an hour. Which seems to be about what it is...




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Re: Radio check yes please!

Only if you are in VHF range. NP 289 explains GMDSS rather well, trust you have read it?

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Re: Radio check yes please!

Sailing from our normal area of Scotland, via Ireland to the Solent, I was amazed by the number of radio checks on Portland and Solent coastguard ch 16. It seems to be a particularly local affliction. (I haven't been further east than the Solent so far). How come the rest of the UK, or at least the western half, manages without this annoying habit.

For coastal cruising most of us have a handheld, and anyway there is always the dreaded mobile, so why bother.

I consider it good practice to keep a listening watch on ch 16, but the continuing radio checks on this frequency in the Solent make it difficult.

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