The Radio Licence Penalties

[Ships_Cat]

But I think Steve is saying that he has to do a one day course - seems strange to have a mandatory course for an examination of such trivial content.

John

<hr width=100% size=1>I am the cat but I am only 6.

 

[Solitaire]

Yes, the VHF course is a day. The exam itself is only one part of it. It is a process of continous assement which includes an exercise in the use of DSC enabled sets.In addition to the overall requirements as to what both the ships radio liecence and the SRC certificate covers, the course looks at pro words, forbidden transmissions and sceanario situations. Perhaps people forget that not everybody is as "clever" as clearly contributors to this thread are. Most people who come on the courses I run have no idae how to use the radio and in fact are scared of doing so. A fair bit of time is spent on getting people to "analyses" a given situation and to decide on what the most appropriate call should be. Ranging from a Mayday call to simply asking for a berth at a marina. It goes into the appropriate channels and what they are used for, as well as not using ch 16 for radio checks! It depends on the person taking the course, but I try to make it fun and interesting, and to have a laugh - yes, it can be a bit dry and I've seen some instructors whereafter the first 10 mins you'd want to slit your wrists! My aim is for people to enjoy and learn at the same time. My aim is to get people to laugh and I find that the morning session has gone very quickly. In the afternoon, time is spent on the DSC simulator - after a period of familarisation, students are then asked to perform various functions. On succesful completion the exam is then underatken. I should say that it is rare that everybody gets 22/22! The pass mark is 14 but if the first part of the exam is not to the required level then the marks cannot be made up on the second part. The first section requires that a Mayday is written out together with some other questions requireing written answers. the second section is multi choice, combined with a question on the phonetic alaphabet.

The RYA also use a independent company to asses the instructors, as I found out the other day when an envelope arrived on my doorstep from a company "speacialising satisfaction mamagement". Unbeknown to me, a course which I had run, and I don't know when or where, was practically assesd. Students on the course were asked a range of questions and asked to rate them out of 10. the questioned ranged from "ease of booking the course" thru to technical expertise of the assesor. It was a pre and post ranking (at least that's how I read it) and after the course, the students were asked to rank the actual course against their pre course requirements. Some of the rankings I have no control over - course fees are set by the school I work for, for example. Out of a maximum score of 10 my average came in at 8! And to be honest I was happy with that after having only qualified in Feb this year.

Having an SRC certificate is a legal requirement - it is that, a short range VHF certificate of competance to try and educate people onto the correct procedure of VHF useage and try and reduce the level of "airwave clutter" that so many on this forum seem to find so annoying. It is not intended to give a "deep and meanigful" incite into the technical workings of VHF or any other kind of radio for that matter. There are longer courses for the long range stuff! I'll also point out that I've had students on my coursrse that have come in with blaze " I know it all attitudes" and have struggled. Why, because they think that, because they've been doing it for years, they know it all!

Some have argued about the cost! Given the amount of prepartion work required to put together a good, interesting and, yes, entertaining course - I think it's good value. It took me about 6 weeks to put together a course which others have asked for copies of.Also the cost of simulators is not cheap. Simrad do a simulator which costs some £500, ICOM have a hard simulator, which is slightly less expensive which is still on test I belive that will cost in the region of £300 plus VAT. Oh, and even though these sets are hardwired and can't transmit, there is a requirement to have a licence which costs in th ergion of £50 - now that I do find a **** take!

On top of that there is the cost of the computer simulator software - of which there is only one supplier. A good piece of news is that we may be getting closer to haveing an actual radio simualtor based on either the Simrad RD 86 or the ICOM M60,1 as opposed to having to use a computer version which can cause confusion with non computer literate students - of which there are a large number, partcicularly amongst the older generation. (Boatone excluded here of course/forums/images/icons/wink.gif)

Sorry for the long post, but I am just fed up with all the whinging going on here! It's becoming worse than a BA jumbo on the stand at Sydney airport! Yes of course I have a vested interest, I spent my own money doing the instructor course, but at the end of the day it is a legal requirment to have an SRC certificate, the same as having a TV licence or a driving licence.


<hr width=100% size=1>Boating is <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.powerboattraininguk.co.uk>Serious Fun</A>

 

[BrendanS]

See Mike Martin's comments on possibly doing away with the licence requirement.

I'm not sure it's going to do anything for competence on the airwaves, but will certainly cut down on the amount of ybw forum traffic, though the amount of Solent radio trafic may increase further.

One of the schools in Cowes featured in a recent ipc magazine article (can't remember which mag) have a room full of radios which cannot transmit (they didn't say how this was rigged) ......at least they thought so, until a passing yachtsman relayed one of the many maydays they were making at the time! /forums/images/icons/laugh.gif

<hr width=100% size=1>Me transmitte sursum, caledoni

 

[Ships_Cat]

Thanks for that explanation David - as you possibly know I am in NZ so my questioning post, at least, was generated out of interest.

After periods here with no licence being required for VHF fitted pleasure vessels, no operators certificate being required and no callsign being required (in various mixes of those) it has settled down now to being no individual ships licence is required but a callsign is as is an operators certificate. A single free general licence covers all these boats but about which no individual boat needs to be concerned apart from being required to operate under its rules, and it obviously covers RADAR, EPIRB, etc too.

There are two sets of callsigns, one set administered by the state and the other devolved to the Voluntary Coastguard (which is more like your RNLI than your Coastguard, and is a charity). For non foreign going vessels carrying VHF only they just need to phone a Coastguard number and they get charged a small amount on their telephone account (about equivalent of GBP5) which gives a callsign. They are also required to have a VHF operators certificate which again the Coastguard looks after - as far as I know you can just turn up and sit it or undertake the course, all of which is very cheap (don't know what it is at moment but basically just covers costs). As far as I know, the VHF examination does not include DSC as there is no declared DSC Sea Area A1 here (nor in Australia).

In practice, it seems that any pleasure VHF station making sane use of the spectrum eg asking to make a trip report, will have a blind eye turned if they have no callsign. As is usual with trip reports the callsign is requested, sometimes hear "errr I don't have one" but they do not seem to be reminded that now they are supposed to have one if they use the radio. It would seem to me that many of the smaller vessels carry a radio for the case only if they are in trouble so for alot of small vessel breakdowns the craft does not seem to have a callsign when they seek assistance, but one never hears (around here anyway) them abusing that by using the spectrum for idle chat. The whole process is arranged to make it as easy as possible and encouraging for small pleasure boats to fit VHF.

Any vessel having a DSC VHF radio (which increasingly they are as new radios are bought) is required by law to obtain an MMSI for it. I do not think that is so in the UK but may be wrong in that. It is issued free by the state (in my case, with an existing callsign, they just did so over the telephone).

For pleasure vessels carrying ssb (or other long range radio equipment) or going foreign (assuming NZ flagged) the radio operator has to have a minimum of the more comprehensive operators certificate issued by the state (but for which there are many private examiners including the Coastguard) - this fitting into the ITU requirement for long range equipment. Again I believe that you can just roll up to that and sit it (which is what I did, albeit many years ago now). Those vessels also have to have an individual licence issued by the state which is renewed annually (current cost around GBP15 so not alot cheaper than yours).

If you have a licence issued by the state and require a callsign, one gets asked if you have any preferences for the number (callsigns here are 2 letters followed by a 4 digit number) - so you can pick a run of numbers out of your telephone number, sail number, or whatever, to assist remembering it and as long as not already issued. Again the callsign for our present boat was just issued over the telephone but possibly because I already held an account.

Not sure of the operators certificate requirements in Australia but both small commercial and pleasure vessels carrying VHF only require no callsign (the vessel's name sufficing) and no licence.

I can understand the other poster's quandry as for someone with a professional radio background and operating experience in other services to have to sit through a course covering what is really elementary stuff and for which the operating element can be learnt from a number of books, etc. In fact here free booklets are available in most chandleries covering all that is needed. I suspect that for someone with a strong radio background but unsure of exactly what was required as far as operating procedures were required, someone from the Coastguard or one of the examiners would be happy to spend 5 minutes pointing them in the right direction as to what material to home study.

John

<hr width=100% size=1>I am the cat but I am only 6.

 

[steverow]

Brendan,

Unfortunately it is an assessed course so the college told me, requiring my presence all day.

Yep taken many exams, both radio manufacturers courses G&G and industry TEC courses and others.
In all cases I can remember I was taught by people who either knew a lot more than me or who had a more than adequate grasp of the subject.
This is simply not the case with the Cert of Competence.
Instructors are mainly drawn from the ranks of Day Skipper/Yachtmaster instructors. They seem to have no real intrinsic appreciation or knowledge of Radio, and I'm sure they dont pretend to.
There may be exceptions of course but on the whole I beleive I am right.
The RYA/MCA really need a bypass for Radio amateurs and communications professionals.

Peresonally I would like to see the course expanded to cover radio theory and installation...sort of a dumbed down Radio amateurs course, because what the hell is the use of an operators cert if you've not fitted the PL259 plug correctly on that antenna extension cable you put up the mast, and your TX PA pops on its first outing as youve just ran aground.
The problem here is that some of the instructors wouldnt have the technical ability to take this stuff on board, which is why you have this lowest common denominator
course, really just designed to take in money for the RYA.
Sorry, but this is the one subject that really makes my blood boil.
I dont really see why they cant incorporate all this into day skipper or competent crew anyway.

Steve




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[steverow]

Yes this is all very well, and I appreciate that it is useful for a lot of people, but you have not answered why I and others like me should have to take this very basic course.
The operating (not technical) requirements of the Radio Amateurs exam already cover this in much more detail, with the exception of two prowords Seelonce and Finee, which dont usually occur in the Standard Nato set.
The operating practices enshrined in maritime radio operation are not in isolation
they come from well practised and developed international procedures which are common to most forms of comms both land based and sea/air.
Anyone who is either a radio amateur, working in radio comms, a member of the emergency services, or military signals personnel will have sufficient knowledge to bypass this exam.
The exception possibly being channel allocation, but as we are already well used to channel allocations and bandplans, all that is required is to familiarise for these.
I dont even mind taking the exam in isolation, but I'm damned if I'm going to sit all day being taught that which I already know and have done for thirty years.


I firmly beleive that not only should the course cover operating procedures, but also basic radio theory and installation techniques as well. Your operating procedures are only as useful as the installation and no operators cert is going to save you when a crappy antenna installation restricts your range or blows your TX PA, just as you hit a rock.

Anyone purporting to be teaching anything to do with radio should have a basic knowledge of the theory behind it. I dont mean to engineering level, but certainly to a level equivalent to the Radio Amateurs Certificate, this is so that you are able to give advice to your candidates on matters like choosing a piece of equipment,
antenna installation, propogation etc etc.
You should really know how these things work, after all they look to you as a "technical expert" in these matters.

Steve

g1fip.


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[steverow]

Re: Operators Certificate...questions.

Mike,

Thanks for that.
So what you are really saying is that you as the government communications agency have virtually no control whatsoever over anything in the Marine Band,
and that probably the level of competence instruction and equipment/installation falls well short of what should be expected of a Safety of Life Service.

A shameful situation (if true).

My sympathies.

Steve.

g1fip

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[BrendanS]

I think if you call around some of the one man band trainsers, you'll find someone who will, for someone of your level of expertise, provide a slimmed down course which can be undertaken in an hour or two one evening, including the exam

<hr width=100% size=1>Me transmitte sursum, caledoni

 

[BarryH]

Having gained my operaters cert a few years ago, ie, before DSC was a twinkle in someones eye, that could be said for anyone who's read a book on the subject. It was a bit basic to say the least! All IMHO coming from a person who has a passing interest in radio in general as a hobby type thing

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[BrendanS]

Uhmmm! Yes, exactly, and some of the trainers realise that, ask a few searching questions to see what your level of knowledge is, and cut out all the crap. Quite a nice way to spend an hour in the pub. Allegedly

<hr width=100% size=1>Me transmitte sursum, caledoni

 

[steverow]

Yeah I'd quite happily go for that.

Steve.


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[Wiggo]

Re: yeah but

I didn't know you could get done for speeding in a pub. I can think of several people who should be done for going too slowly in the pub, particularly when it's their round next...

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[milltech]

Re: yeah but

Database must be pretty crap too. My call sign was on the boat, but with the boat name, a completed form and a cheque, they were unable to identify it for me. Strange or what?

Basically like Government Policy in so many areas, all this thread is about stealth taxes, and money grabbing for nothing. Like the Sea Fishing licence suggestion. Civil Servants, how to they bring themselves to do it with a straight face?

<hr width=100% size=1>John
http://www.on-line-marine.com

 

[milltech]

Re: yeah but

Good God, don't bring safety into it, what's it got to do with safety, it's got to do with getting your money at any price.

<hr width=100% size=1>John
http://www.on-line-marine.com

 

[milltech]

Re: yeah but

Doesn't matter, it only matters that they get MORE.

<hr width=100% size=1>John
http://www.on-line-marine.com

 

[milltech]

Making work

<hr width=100% size=1>John
http://www.on-line-marine.com

 

[milltech]

Re: So I can smash an old lady over the head...

HERE HERE

<hr width=100% size=1>John
http://www.on-line-marine.com

 

[Observer]

Steve,

I was able to get on a half-day course when I upgraded from the restricted certificate to SRC. Still largely a waste of time but only half as much. You might have to ring around a bit to find a school who'll do it. Some I tried wouldn't. Ended up at Onboard Sea School on Hayling Island.

<hr width=100% size=1><A target="_blank" HREF=http://aflcharters.co.uk>Dream Dancer</A>

 

[powerskipper]

I mite be able to arrange a half day, or 2 hour upgrade exam only for DSC, if anyone is interested, can they PM or email to powerskipper@farmgate21.fsnet.co.uk will name address and telephone number and will find out the cost etc

<hr width=100% size=1><A target="_blank" HREF=http://powerskipper.mysite.freeserve.com/>http://powerskipper.mysite.freeserve.com/</A>
Julie

 

[steverow]

Thanks,
We're not entirely illegal as SWMBO has it. Although she's been around Radio most
of her life, she found it meaningless and a complete bore.
I thought at least she might get something out of it....I was wrong.

There is only one college in South Warwickshire which does RYA courses, the one where SWMBO works, so at least she didnt have to pay for it...

If some kindly RYA SRC instructor would like to test me and pass me in a Pub of his choice in the South Midlands for an hour then I'd go for that but I'm not wasting a day of my life on this triviality when I could be on my boat in Swansea.

Steve.


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