lustyd
Well-Known Member
Is the course actually required? I’ve seen plenty offering exam only.
VHF Radio licence
- Thread starter Seegull
- Start date
Roberto
Well-Known Member
FWIW that's what I read as well, I seem to remember because of the absence of an examiner different from the teacher (?), who were introduced later.
Momac
Well-Known Member
I agree but don't forget anyone can use the VHF under the supervision of a short range certificate holder.
It's amusing when people who have been trained make mistakes which they have probably picked up from watching too many old TV police dramas.
dgadee
Well-Known Member
To be eligible for the exam, on the day of the exam all candidates must:
1. be 16 years old or older, and
2. present one of the following eligibility documents:
- evidence of completing an RYA SRC training course through an RYA Recognised Training Centre*, or
- an RYA Restricted VHF certificate, or
- a suitable aviation radio operator's certificate.
dgadee
Well-Known Member
When I passed mine I could barely remember the letter code. Still have gaps. Of course, memory isn't needed if you have a crib sheet, but no one makes any money out of that.
st599
Well-Known Member
Germany not recognising the RYA SRC
The RYA courses on Electronics are out of date and are being updated. With VDES rolling out across the rest of Europe (but not UK), there'll be a few countries shouting at Ofcom to ensure that UK vessels don't transmit on the new digital frequencies.
dgadee
Well-Known Member
Page long gone. They were saying that if you remained longer than one year in Germany you would have to take the German exam. I suppose they could - the EU always had a problem with equivalence of qualifications.
However, was the plan ever enacted? Easy to whinge but not so easy to legislate.
The RYA should be encouraging everyone to have a license with a simple, cheap exam. VHF is not rocket science. But that would get in the way of making money
capnsensible
Well-Known Member
How much?
Frogmogman
Well-Known Member
We’ve lived in France since 1988, but had bought a boat and I needed the French license to register the vhf, AIS, EPIRB etc.Have I understood correctly, French certificate was needed because you are both moved to France, right?
As visitor from the UK or EU countries, it is not necessary to get a local SRC, I hope
As my wife is a much less experienced and confident sailor, her learning properly about how to operate the VHF seemed useful as well as a good confidence builder for her.
ylop
Well-Known Member
I couldn’t have told you it was Germany complaints but the fact it was “other country(s)” complaints that caused an overhaul of the course was widely reported in the marine press at the time. Nothing to do with the EU - simply about international cooperation on a global scale.
Probably, or certainly those whose signals regularly reach their shores.
Is that because the training is poor or nobody enforces it? Are the bad comms from uncertified people, people who were certified so long ago they’ve forgotten it all or people who have given up any discipline following because nobody else seems to? FWIW the comms I have heard in the Forth, Clyde, N Wales, W of Scotland Inc Hebrides have been pretty compliant (90% of what 90% of people say is spot on).
Is that not the status quo? I suppose they could dumb it down even more - but not if you were to use your radio ever outside UK waters (or potentially even in locations where its signal would propagate outside U.K. waters). The requirements for testing are agreed internationally with the ITU and as mentioned above if one country doesn’t seem to be playing fair others will object.
You seem convinced it’s a nice earlier for the RYA. How many certs to they issue each year? At what profit? My assumption (perhaps wrong) was they did it because the alternative of leaving government to do it themselves or having true commercial operators do it would be bad for their membership.
Alicatt
Well-Known Member
I am Scottish, now resident in Belgium, I did the SRC course in Scotland in 2023 as well as doing the Powerboat Level 2 and CEVINI and got the International Certificate of Competence for costal and inland waterways.
I contacted BIPT the Belgian telecoms governing body and asked them first before I did anything, they informed me that the UK/RYA SRC would be valid for me to use a radio on a Belgian flagged boat on the Belgian waterways. When we got the boat inspected the Waterweg Politie also said that the ICC and the SRC were perfectly valid for me to pilot a boat capable of over 15km/h and up to 20m in water line length.
The boat I had then I did not need a licence to sail it, it was 7.5m and could do less than 15km/h, however, it's length meant that it had to have a VHF radio, so I did the PB2 course mainly to encourage my Belgian wife who knew nothing about boats, she did the PB2 course and passed,
The boat I have now is 11.6m and capable of 30km/h
The other BIG factor was that in Belgium the radio licence is 2 tier, first you do a course and exam for a non DSC radio and then another for DSC, the courses and exam are over €300 to do and as a Scotsman with short arms and deep pockets...
the £69 for the course and exam when coupled with the PB2 course was the way to go.
capnsensible
Well-Known Member
I blame the International Telecomunications Union, the pesky frequency dictators. Who do they think they are? Just because they started in 1865 they think they have the right to set global safety standards for the correct operation of radio equipment across the spectrum.
Bah.
Bah.
dgadee
Well-Known Member
Why don't they set standards for examination if they are that bothered about things.
Do we have exams for mobiles? Much more complicated devices. And at least people use them, unlike 'advanced' VHF systems which are reminiscent of the 1980s pre-internet.
capnsensible
Well-Known Member
Who do you think does that?
ylop
Well-Known Member
What makes you think they don’t! Thats the whole reason your UK VHF course/certificate are the way they are.
Can my use of a mobile phone block other users from getting vital distress messages? Are my conversations on mobile phones broadcast for all to hear? Are there limited cellphone bandwidth issues which make it necessary to use my time very efficiently? (Acually yes, but because I pay a provider for use there is an incentive for ever new frequency regions to be licenses to cope with demand, and because I get a better product a reason for me to pay to upgrade my hardware to keep up).
Only in some regards - I don’t care about the frequency / channel, transmission power, call sign of the station I’m calling, I don’t have to release a PTT to hear a response, etc.
Of course that may be an argument why a VHF does need training - as an infrequently used piece of equipment you are not familiar with it. Give a mobile phone to a 13 yr old and ask them to make a phone call and actually talk to someone. You might be surprised how scary that is, and how ill prepared they are for verbal communication like that. Even answering a phone is a skill - one we mostly learned simply be observing our parents, but try calling a youngster and see how clear the response is!
ylop
Well-Known Member
If you want to keep that line of thought up in how “easy” a phone is to use versus a VHF - randomly sample people across a wire range of ages and experience and ask them (no googling):
What number do you call to the emergency service in the U.K.?
How about in the last foreign country they visited?
If they needed the police in a non-Emergency?
Or if they needed urgent medical advice but didn’t need an ambulance?
Are those numbers the same in Scotland/Wales/Ireland (NI/RoI?)
when you call 999 what will you be asked?
Who do you ask for if you need:
- a lifeboat?
- mountain rescue?
- bomb disposal?
- help for someone in trouble on a lake/inland loch?
I can confidently predict that not everyone will give the correct answer. A lot will probably give good enough answers that they would get the help they need although perhaps not through the optimal route. If people don’t know how to get the right sort of help using the device they have in their hand 365 days a year - why would they inuitively know how to do it using a less user friendly contraption.
Now take people walking into their first ever “try boating” course or joining you as guests aboard for the first time. Can they guess Ch16? Do they intuitively know how DSC Red Button works? Can they even loosely describe the difference between a mayday and PanPan?
It’s clear from the practice calls people make during their training that even having studied the right words to say, many people will talk to fast, annunciate poorly, jumble their words etc - without panicking about your crisis.
What number do you call to the emergency service in the U.K.?
How about in the last foreign country they visited?
If they needed the police in a non-Emergency?
Or if they needed urgent medical advice but didn’t need an ambulance?
Are those numbers the same in Scotland/Wales/Ireland (NI/RoI?)
when you call 999 what will you be asked?
Who do you ask for if you need:
- a lifeboat?
- mountain rescue?
- bomb disposal?
- help for someone in trouble on a lake/inland loch?
I can confidently predict that not everyone will give the correct answer. A lot will probably give good enough answers that they would get the help they need although perhaps not through the optimal route. If people don’t know how to get the right sort of help using the device they have in their hand 365 days a year - why would they inuitively know how to do it using a less user friendly contraption.
Now take people walking into their first ever “try boating” course or joining you as guests aboard for the first time. Can they guess Ch16? Do they intuitively know how DSC Red Button works? Can they even loosely describe the difference between a mayday and PanPan?
It’s clear from the practice calls people make during their training that even having studied the right words to say, many people will talk to fast, annunciate poorly, jumble their words etc - without panicking about your crisis.
dgadee
Well-Known Member
I think no one.
dgadee
Well-Known Member
My friend was rescued from his burning boat. I don't know whether he called the coastguard on his mobile or VHF but suspect his mobile.
Why should one require a one day course and not the other? One whole day!! For what? It's not rocket science and would be even simpler if VHF radios had better designed human interfaces.
Why should one require a one day course and not the other? One whole day!! For what? It's not rocket science and would be even simpler if VHF radios had better designed human interfaces.
dgadee
Well-Known Member
Your last para seems to imply you do training? After one day are they totally able to handle an emergency call? After 6 months has everything remained accessible in their head in an emergency? I doubt it and suspect trainers know that much will be lost.
lustyd
Well-Known Member
Trick question, all emergency numbers work in the uk (999,911,112) equally well.