Success with Ofcom ..... now a question

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Shearwater

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Received my licence & MMSI nmbrs and call sign all in one hit. Perhaps I ought know or if I did then I have forgotten BUT when do I use my call sign in place of the boat's name? I can understand a boat name may be difficult to recognise or comprehend etc for a foreign operator so is then when a call sign maybe/should used? Or another way of putting it,who decided when it is used?
 
I have never used our call sign, and our Emergency VHF Procedure chart does not require it to be used either, (name of boat and MMSI). The chart states the call sign at the top so, if anyone asked for it, it's there to be seen.

Cant really think of any occasion for it.
 
If you don't have DSC and therefore a MMSI number, you should use your call sign instead of the MMSI number for mayday calls etc.
 
The simple answer is that you won't have to decide to use it. Occasionally you may be asked for it, for instance when the CG get fed up with people asking for radio checks, as I have witnessed in the Thames CG area. It didn't half go quiet quickly... /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
 
The answer is your decision.

As signals guy at Naval College told us Cadets ... try getting some of the ships names over the radio ... eg "HEMIGLYPTA" ... and you are talking to a station that english is not mother tongue. Use of Call-Sign is better wherever you need to be sure identity is required.
It will be required for old fashioned radio link calls .. as example. The Call sign is unique to your station unlike the vessel name.
 
....one of those things not often used or asked for today, but in the past they were used more. Certainly interesting that I can clearly remember the call sign of my parents old boat some 30+++++ years ago.... Mike November Uniform Mike...
 
In the "good" old days before mobile phones and gismos, to try to make a phone call involved making contact with a Coast Radio Station, and asking for a Link Call. You had to quote your Radio Call Sign. It was part of the billing process, and also a means of weeding out those without a Ship Licence, which in those days had to be paid for.
 
On a related subject... I bought my boat in January, used so already with MMSI number set up in the radio. Once set it cannot be changed. On the Ofcom site there seems no way to tell it your current MMSI number so it issues a new one - great, except I'd have to remove the radio and send it away to be reset to put that new number in. Is this the way things are supposed to be? Doesn't seem terribly sensible!

Thanks
Graham
 
Good thanks... I will call them! Seems a fundamental flaw in the application process there somehow. There is a place to enter an existing MMSI number for a portable!
 
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