VHF Channel 80

[alexincornwall]

I’ve been trying to get my head around this for the last week but am drawing a blank so, at the risk of looking like an idiot when somebody quickly points out a very obvious answer, thought I’d throw it out there!

I generally communicate with my home marina via ch 80 and have never given it much thought. I don’t have duplex equipment so it works just like any other channel and I’ve never had a problem.

Anyway I pulled up to our fuel berth a week ago and called for an assistant on 80 with my handhold and got no reply. Odd. Tried again, still nothing, turned to the ships VHF and still nothing. Eventually found somebody and asked if they’d heard me which they had not.

We spent a few minutes trying out a few tests and neither of us could communicate on 80, even just a few feet apart. Even my own handheld and ships VHF couldn’t transmit or receive between each other on 80.

I really can’t get my head around it. Worked fine a couple of months ago, nothing has changed with either of my relatively young radios, both have always been set to international, and all other calling channels including 16 are working perfectly, just not 80. Tried again a few days later and still nothing.

Any ideas?

 

[PaulRainbow]

Check to make sure they are set to the UK channel set.

 

[alexincornwall]

Check to make sure they are set to the UK channel set.

My Standard Horizon handheld and Icom ships VHF allows USA, International and Canadian channel groups. Both have always been set to international and have never had any issues on 80. That was my first thought but nothing has changed in either.

 

[PaulRainbow]

My Standard Horizon handheld and Icom ships VHF allows USA, International and Canadian calling groups. Both have always been set to international and have never had any issues on 80. That was my first thought but nothing has changed in either.

Ignore my first reply.

CH80 is a duplex channel. You transmit on 157.025 and receive on 161.625.

The marina transmits on 161.625 and receives on 157.025.

So you cannot hear a transmission from one of your sets to the other, or from/to any other ship based set. The only station that can hear you is a shore based one.

 

[alexincornwall]

Ignore my first reply.

CH80 is a duplex channel. You transmit on 157.025 and receive on 161.625.

The marina transmits on 161.625 and receives on 157.025.

So you cannot hear a transmission from one of your sets to the other, or from/to any other ship based set. The only station that can hear you is a shore based one.

Thanks Paul. I hear what you’re saying but now I’m even more confused. All of the marina guys use handhelds that monitor 80/37. I also hail our little water taxi on 80 (addressing with a slightly different call sign). I transmit on 80, they reply from a 16 foot launch on 80.

 

[Momac]

The marina is allowed to operate a reversed duplex radio and that apparently includes the water taxi.

 

[alexincornwall]

The marina is allowed to operate a reversed duplex radio and that apparently includes the water taxi.

View attachment 150387

Thanks @MartynG, but that still doesn’t solve it. I know that the pontoon based guys can receive and transmit on 80 because their handhelds are awash with two way transmissions, especially in the summer. So why, when I had one of them stood 10 foot away from my boat could nobody receive either of our transmissions? If all of the marina operatives are running duplex programmed kit, shorebased or otherwise, we should have been able to communicate as we always have done (until a week ago), on 80? Am I being incredibly thick here or do I have an issue which has affected not one but two separate units?

 

[Momac]

Cant explain that .

 

[Daydream believer]

Are you sure that you are not transmitting on 80 A ?

 

[Stork_III]

..

Ch80A (USA CH set)TX and RC on 157.025. So will tx to a shore base station but not RC , but will RC from a sea base station.

 

[Daydream believer]

Ch80A (USA CH set)TX and RC on 157.025. So will tx to a shore base station but not RC , but will RC from a sea base station.

I edited my post whilst you were quoting me. I did this because I wanted to go & get my radio as I remembered it was in my study.
I have a UK ICOM. If I press the "CH" key it changes 80 to 80A & it has caused me issues in the past.
I do not understand your post though. What difference does it make to the station if it is on shore or on a boat. The radio does not know that> does it?
I just had an issue once calling Shotley marina & it turned out that somehow CH had been pressed in my pocket for more than 1 second which caused the change.

 

[alexincornwall]

Are you sure that you are not transmitting on 80 A ?

Yes 100%

 

[Daverw]

Duplex can seem confusing, especially when it’s preset bands, try and borrow a radio scanner that you can tune to the actual receive frequency not the band and you can test easily. You can buy little ham radio radios for £25 that are open to marine frequencies

 

[Pye_End]

if the receiving station is set to the shore based frequency, but cannot receive you, is your set working? Have you tried a simplex channel with other users as well?

 

[alexincornwall]

if the receiving station is set to the shore based frequency, but cannot receive you, is your set working? Have you tried a simplex channel with other users as well?

Yes, both of my sets have suddenly failed to tx or rc on 80. I’ve tested most of the common simplex calling channels between my two sets and no issues whatsoever. The third set engaged in this ch80 debacle was that of the marina staff. Still no joy.

The difficulty being that it was a miserable January day with zero local traffic so we lacked any other transmissions to assist in troubleshooting.

 

[st599]

I do not understand your post though. What difference does it make to the station if it is on shore or on a boat. The radio does not know that> does it?

In Duplex channels, there are 2 frequencies, Ship Stations Transmit on A and Receive on B, Shore stations Transmit on B and Receive on A. They have to be programmed correctly.

 

[Andrew_Trayfoot]

In Duplex channels, there are 2 frequencies, Ship Stations Transmit on A and Receive on B, Shore stations Transmit on B and Receive on A. They have to be programmed correctly.

so basically you CAN'T test CH80 with 2 ordinarily handhelds as they are both 'ship' stations and will be transmitting on frequency a and receiving on reqency b.
I once had your issue and it was because the hand held had accidenty been set to US rather than International config.

 

[Stork_III]

I edited my post whilst you were quoting me. I did this because I wanted to go & get my radio as I remembered it was in my study.
I have a UK ICOM. If I press the "CH" key it changes 80 to 80A & it has caused me issues in the past.
I do not understand your post though. What difference does it make to the station if it is on shore or on a boat. The radio does not know that> does it?
I just had an issue once calling Shotley marina & it turned out that somehow CH had been pressed in my pocket for more than 1 second which caused the change.

It receives from a sea based station which is tx ing on 157.025, not from shore base which is tx ing on 161.625

 

[VicS]

Yes, both of my sets have suddenly failed to tx or rc on 80. I’ve tested most of the common simplex calling channels between my two sets and no issues whatsoever. The third set engaged in this ch80 debacle was that of the marina staff. Still no joy.

The difficulty being that it was a miserable January day with zero local traffic so we lacked any other transmissions to assist in troubleshooting.

Your two radios will not be able to communicate with each other on a duplex channel because they are both set up as "ship stations" and are therefore Tx ing on the same frequency and both Rc ing on the same frequency. To communicate with each other one would have to be set up to Rc on the others Tx frequency and vice versa. A shore station would be set up with the frequencies reversed and you would then be able to communicate with it

The most likely reason you could not communicate with the marina staff is that their HH radio was, like your HH, set up as a ship station and not as a shore station.
They is no reason, based on anything you have told us, to suspect there is anything wrong with either of your radios.
.

 

[James_Calvert]

Is it possible you always used to use channel M to speak to the marina? A simplex channel.

And you switched to 80 for whatever reason and found it behaved differently?