PjotrC, Hello.
I have been following your posts some time.
I am extremely interested in the whole DSC story, and sincerely hope it makes it into the next release Alpha code.
You have enough technical info on the sentences and the meanings, I would like to weigh in here with my opinion of the real utility of this while underway.
One of the most important functions I use is the position reporting via DSC. This has no effect on OpenCPN but be aware of it.
Example 1, I am sailing and come across a vessel on AIS that is transmitting and I can see that he is completely unaware of my presence, due bad
radar target in bad sea state, clutter whatever. In the old days I could have called him and confirmed that he was aware of me. Now, I merely select his MMSI number off the list on my
radio, and squirt a position report at him. This should place my vessel on his ECDIS with my POS/CRS/SPD if not at least on his radio.
Example 2, I am sailing with a buddy
boat, and I would like his "track" to be on my
screen. For example the north coast of
Venezuela, where we run on a moonless night with
navigation lights "malfunctioning" In the past, we select a "private"
vhf channel,
low power, and then pre arrange that to any reported longitude, we will add say, 2.34minutes, and latitude, say subtract 4.21minutes. This is in case of nasty people listening in. With DSC, we would set up an auto posrep every 15 minutes, and the radio will continue this until stopped. The result would be a "track" of points.
Example 3, an
emergency situation, it would be good to have the position of the victim on the
screen.
These are real world examples. I think the DSC system contemplates several categories of messages,
DISTRESS, Urgency,
Safety, Routine, Position Req, Position Rep, Automatic Position Polling, and Group calls (AFAIK)
Also the MRCC messages probably include their position, which could be helpful.
Section 9 of the user manual for the GX2150 refers (downloadable from Standard Horizon)
Furthermore,
DISTRESS calls are classified, Fire, Sinking,
Collision,
MOB.
I would like to see the DSC stuff handled as WAYPOINTS not handled as AIS targets. I would like to see the type of call, as different waypoint icons depending on their classification, and then distress ones as different again indicating the nature of the
emergency. The vocabulary of these "nature of distress" is defined by the IMO. I would like to see the received information displayed as a rollover in a box, giving Date, Time, Pos, COG, SOG, Nature and class of call in words.
This is not a feature request per se, its to give you a user view of personal "preferred implementation.
More and more radios are going to have this incorporated, and probably ATIS too. I think a separate com port is ideal, with a possibility of sharing an existing port. This opens a question, that if the port is AIS shared, how are the targets handled, AIS or WPT??
Kind regards and thank you for your interest.
Mike.
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