VHF _ DSC Alarm yesteday - what is it?

Laundryman said:
I'm going to ask this question again because i cant see a straightforward answer yet.
I passed my dsc licence 3 years ago but until 3 weeks ago i didnt have a dsc set. If i was told how to respond to a dsc alert on the course, i have forgotten. Ive even dug out my course notes and my hand written notes but they seem to concentrate on mmsi numbers and when to press the mayday/ distress button. I now have an icom 411. Please, if the alarm goes off, what do i do, which buttons do i press?

Thank you
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your main buttons for using dsc are ent, clr, menu. all mentioned in your manual, maybe you should go thru the manual and get to know your set one wet and windy day at your berth/mooring.

The clr (clear) button on your set is to stop the alarm, if recieving a mayday alert, then any button will stop the alarm. there are so many ways of setting up your set, that its best for you to read it thoroughly.
 
Laundryman said:
I'm going to ask this question again because i cant see a straightforward answer yet.
I passed my dsc licence 3 years ago but until 3 weeks ago i didnt have a dsc set. If i was told how to respond to a dsc alert on the course, i have forgotten. Ive even dug out my course notes and my hand written notes but they seem to concentrate on mmsi numbers and when to press the mayday/ distress button. I now have an icom 411. Please, if the alarm goes off, what do i do, which buttons do i press?

Thank you
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RTFM for your set. It tells you! Enter or clear will do it. But clear will clear the screen of any details MMSI number of vessel in distress and it's position. So push ENTER. OR ENT.
 
Good reply !

KREW2 said:
Like you I did this years ago and I have gone a bit rusty. You press any button that will stop the alarm, maybe the position and name or mmsi no. of the vessel will be displayed, listen to channel 16 for a response, if none, then follow these procedures.
http://www.pzsc.org.uk/radio/Mayday Relay Message.pdf
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It is nice when someone does reply to the OP with a useful post.

I also did my course sometime ago and, thankfully, have never needed to use my radio in anger. This thread has inspired me to have a read through of my relevant documentation so that I am able to act as required if necessary.
 
dslittle said:
It is nice when someone does reply to the OP with a useful post.

I also did my course sometime ago and, thankfully, have never needed to use my radio in anger. This thread has inspired me to have a read through of my relevant documentation so that I am able to act as required if necessary.
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Prob is that the question is a bit like someone asking how to switch the interior light on in a car, the answer is in the manual!
Not all cars are the same and not all radios are the same so a generic answer is not the answer.
As some one else said RTFM!
Stu
 
Ubergeekian said:
Is there generally a way to turn off all the DSC stuff completely?
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My understanding (which could be inaccurate) is that a DSC radio's behaviour is quite tightly regulated. Things like alarms, time intervals, possibly even how loud the alarms have to be. So Icom (for instance) isn't *allowed* to sell you a radio which can ignore Safety alerts, no matter how annoying it is when some (often Naval) station is prefixing practically all its broadcasts with them.

Such strictures seem reasonable among all the other regulations that pertain to a ship's bridge, but they're a pain in the bum on a small boat. Especially when the radio is directly above the head of your bunk.

Pete
 
skipper_stu said:
Prob is that the question is a bit like someone asking how to switch the interior light on in a car, the answer is in the manual!
Not all cars are the same and not all radios are the same so a generic answer is not the answer.
As some one else said RTFM!
Stu
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Yes! you should read the manual but, the link I gave was to show how to respond to a DSC distress alert, not how to operate your individual piece of kit.
 

Well, isn't this just like saying that You can't be forced to wear safety belts in Your car?

May be in UK waters only skilled, cautious and knowledgeable people are at the helm of pleasure boats, be sail or motor.

My experience in the Med is that EVERY YEAR dozens of small or major accidents occur and a lot of time is lost in:

- getting in contact with some OFFICIAL BODY (let's say the Coast Guard as an example)
-clearing ch 16 from all unneccessary traffic
-getting the right information to the Official Body of the EXACT position of the accident
- organize, the case being, the help from nearby boats and/or vessels.

For these reasons I keep my radio always on and the loudspeaker too.

How it goes? "No man is an island"?

Cheers
 
gianenrico said:
My experience in the Med is that EVERY YEAR dozens of small or major accidents occur and a lot of time is lost in:

- getting in contact with some OFFICIAL BODY (let's say the Coast Guard as an example)
-clearing ch 16 from all unneccessary traffic
-getting the right information to the Official Body of the EXACT position of the accident
- organize, the case being, the help from nearby boats and/or vessels.

For these reasons I keep my radio always on and the loudspeaker too.
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My experience over the last couple of years in W France / Iberia is that an increasing number of all ships messages are preceded by a DSC alarm. I can't see why this is necessary for a securite call, or even for the news that someone has drifted out to sea on a lilo 50 miles away.

When day sailing I can just about cope with diving below to silence the alarm before it gets too loud, but if I was passagemaking, when the off watch crew sleeps close to the VHF, I'd be looking to disable the speaker or turn off the set and use a handheld for covering short range calls. This doesn't seem to be what the GMDSS should have intended.

Another complication comes if the boat is empty but the VHF is on and a DSC alarm goes off. This happened the other day after we had arrived at a new marina and SWMBO and I (unusually) both went into the capitainerie to check in. SWMBO emerged at a run to silence the alarm when she realised what it was.
 
Solitaire said:
There are 4 types of DSC alert.
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As you'll know, there are /also/ other DSC features - like position send & position request - practice with a friend, and you might be able to get a handy new waypoint appear on your plotter for a breakfast RVP without any embarrassing VHF chit-chat nor mobile phone usage.

Cockpit mics are great.
 
prv said:
My understanding (which could be inaccurate) is that a DSC radio's behaviour is quite tightly regulated. Things like alarms, time intervals, possibly even how loud the alarms have to be. So Icom (for instance) isn't *allowed* to sell you a radio which can ignore Safety alerts, no matter how annoying it is when some (often Naval) station is prefixing practically all its broadcasts with them.

Such strictures seem reasonable among all the other regulations that pertain to a ship's bridge, but they're a pain in the bum on a small boat. Especially when the radio is directly above the head of your bunk.

Pete
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The standard answer is that DSC alarms cannot by law be turned off but in fact we had a Navman 7100 DSC set that could do just that. This set came with both DSC and ATIS capability and both use the same channel so clearly only one could be in use at a time. Within the menu system you could turn either ATIS or DSC on/off and it was possible to have both off but only one on. We had suffered from so many alarms for incidents or notices way out of our area (100mls even) that we frequently had our previous set turned off. On several occasions the alarm was still sounding and blotting out the broadcast on Ch16, because we couldn't get down below fast enough to shut it up, clever that. The Navman gave us the option to turn off the DSC if the all ships messages became a real pain and we often did this especially at night with the other half asleep. We had however by then got into the habit of NOT switching the VHF on for trips in local waters, sadly a direct result of constant radio check requests and DSC alarms.
 
saltwater_gypsy said:
In my humble opinion the DSC alarm is a complete nonsense for recreational vessels!!!!!
It is delivered at 90db so that it will be heard on the bridge of a commercial vessel and is "over the top" for a sailing yacht. Because of this , many yachts switch off the VHF at night so that the of- watch crew can get some sleep.
It should be possible to reduce the volume of the alarm and/or have a flashing light to alert the watch to urgent messages.
There is still a good market for non-DSC sets at boat jumbles because of this unfortunate feature.
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I couldn't agree more!

Listening to the tales of woe from posts on here, I am DEFINATELY not going to get a DSC radio until this one goes phut!

Mind you, up here I can go from one message from HMC saying "Go to channel 23 for the weather forecast" through to the next one without hearing a soul on Ch16. One of the advantages of sailing up here! :)
 
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