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Old 03-08-2022, 17:08   #16
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Re: VHF alarm

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Originally Posted by wingssail View Post
Yes, it is a legal requirement and I've been told by S.H. that they cannot turn them off.

Another similar ITU requirement with worse consequences is an alarm if your VHF radio is not getting GPS. You get 15 mins after turning on the radio to provide a GPS position. No GPS? ALARM! And, while you can silence it, after 4 hours it sounds the alarm again. We used to leave the radio on (CH 16) 24 hours a day in case an emergency call came through, though with our other instruments turned off (including GPS). But after getting awakened every night at about 1:00AM we started turning it off when we went to bed. So now we don't monitor 16 at night. So much for a supposed safety feature brought to you by the clueless ITU in Geneva, boating capital of the world.
That's one of the big reasons I bought VHFs with built in GPS. That way they don't rely on any other equipment being powered up.
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Old 03-08-2022, 17:18   #17
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Re: VHF alarm

I'm in a fairly busy area, and might hear one DSC call per hour on a busy day. Pretty much all of them are real emergencies. Most are not terribly local.

I wish there was a DSC call Monday evening. We were sailing & came across a bunch of sheriff & USCG vessels & chopper. This is a time an place where they tend to practice, so we didn't think about it- we're just staying clear later, we noticed our radio was not on 16. Sometime later, I switched back to 16, and immediately heard a USCG general broadcast about a person in the water. We came around and searched until last light. If we had known earlier, we could have started searching earlier.

2 dogs pulled from the water (not by us), 1 body recovered by divers. (I went to high school with the guy.)

Lessons learned-

-set up a "watch" function for channel 16
-call the law enforcement types & ask if this is training or actual SAR
-periodically check that the radio is on 16
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Old 03-08-2022, 19:15   #18
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Re: VHF alarm

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Originally Posted by ranger58sb View Post
Thinking more on this... We're in your area, and I haven't heard a DSC distress call around here any time this year.

-Chris
I suspect you're not in my area! My profile lists my home port of Annapolis Maryland. We are currently on the Saint Lawrence River in Canada. Which makes the distress relays even more puzzling, as on a busy day I might see two pleasure boats. And maybe four freighters.
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Old 03-08-2022, 19:16   #19
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Re: VHF alarm

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Originally Posted by goboatingnow View Post
Distress relays are no longer supposed to be forwarded by DSC , only by voice procedure.

The purpose of a distress relay is to rajah the distress to the nearest MRCC land station so they may activate the SAR process. Because using DSC resulted in too many non MRCC stations being alerted the process of using DSC distress alerts has been deprecated.
Interesting. I absolutely do get distress relay messages. When I clear out my inbox, it begins to fill up again. Any thoughts on how to opt out of this deprecated system?
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Old 03-08-2022, 22:06   #20
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Re: VHF alarm

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In all my time on the water (and we are full time cruisers for the last 7 years, and I worked on the water 8 hours a day for 8 years before that), never, ever, not once, have I heard a REAL DSC distress call. EVER. Just lots, and lots, of false alarms.
I was out sailing in the Gulf Islands (Canada) for 11 days between the 17th and 28th, and my DSC went off twice, both for legit reasons. One was a man overboard situation that definitely called for it, and the other was for a boat on fire.

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Old 03-08-2022, 22:12   #21
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Re: VHF alarm

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Originally Posted by wingssail View Post
Yes, it is a legal requirement and I've been told by S.H. that they cannot turn them off.

Another similar ITU requirement with worse consequences is an alarm if your VHF radio is not getting GPS. You get 15 mins after turning on the radio to provide a GPS position. No GPS? ALARM! And, while you can silence it, after 4 hours it sounds the alarm again. We used to leave the radio on (CH 16) 24 hours a day in case an emergency call came through, though with our other instruments turned off (including GPS). But after getting awakened every night at about 1:00AM we started turning it off when we went to bed. So now we don't monitor 16 at night. So much for a supposed safety feature brought to you by the clueless ITU in Geneva, boating capital of the world.
My GPS (actually a Vesper XB-8000 AIS) is always on because I'm making use of the anchor watch functionality. If anchored in a new locale, it's exceedingly comforting to be able to check on things if you wake up in the middle of the night, without actually getting out of your bunk. I can just grab my phone, check that I haven't wandered out of my swing circle, and that I have enough water under the keel.

On the other hand, I generally turn the VHF off pretty much immediately after I secure the boat and anchor. Almost never am I going to be the responding vessel, and being busy commercial waters, there's chatter on 12 and 16 pretty much 24/7.
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Old 04-08-2022, 03:42   #22
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Re: VHF alarm

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Originally Posted by sailingharry View Post
I suspect you're not in my area! My profile lists my home port of Annapolis Maryland. We are currently on the Saint Lawrence River in Canada.
Ah. Yep, that profile thing.

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Old 04-08-2022, 04:25   #23
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Re: VHF alarm

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Originally Posted by ranger58sb View Post
Ah. Yep, that profile thing.



-Chris
Just to be clear, my profile is correct. "Home" is Maryland. We left June 9 to do the Down East Circle, and will be back in October.

Follow our adventure at circe.travelmap.net
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Old 04-08-2022, 04:40   #24
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Re: VHF alarm

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Originally Posted by sailingharry View Post
I suspect you're not in my area! My profile lists my home port of Annapolis Maryland. We are currently on the Saint Lawrence River in Canada. Which makes the distress relays even more puzzling, as on a busy day I might see two pleasure boats. And maybe four freighters.

I'm on Lake Ontario and I've noticed that 99% of the time, if I get a DSC alert (which is fairly rare), it's a relay from the Canadian Coast Guard.
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Old 04-08-2022, 05:32   #25
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VHF alarm

Quote:
Originally Posted by wingssail View Post
Yes, it is a legal requirement and I've been told by S.H. that they cannot turn them off.



Another similar ITU requirement with worse consequences is an alarm if your VHF radio is not getting GPS. You get 15 mins after turning on the radio to provide a GPS position. No GPS? ALARM! And, while you can silence it, after 4 hours it sounds the alarm again. We used to leave the radio on (CH 16) 24 hours a day in case an emergency call came through, though with our other instruments turned off (including GPS). But after getting awakened every night at about 1:00AM we started turning it off when we went to bed. So now we don't monitor 16 at night. So much for a supposed safety feature brought to you by the clueless ITU in Geneva, boating capital of the world.


The itu might be headquartered in Geneva but it’s member countries , including the US have considerable technical expertise.

As to why you won’t let your gps stay on as well if beyond me. The reason you get an alarm is your gps position stored in the radio is out of date. Simply buy a radio with an integral gps or switch on the gps with the radio. No big deal.

With a DSC radio there is no need for a listening watch on 16 anymore.
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Old 04-08-2022, 05:34   #26
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VHF alarm

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Originally Posted by sailingharry View Post
Interesting. I absolutely do get distress relay messages. When I clear out my inbox, it begins to fill up again. Any thoughts on how to opt out of this deprecated system?


The trouble is the option remains on many DSC radios and untrained operators have no idea as to what to do when they receive a DSC distress relay ( it’s supported to be forwarded by voice only )
In this part of the world I’ve never seen a DSC distress relay.
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Old 04-08-2022, 07:23   #27
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Re: VHF alarm

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Originally Posted by goboatingnow View Post
The trouble is the option remains on many DSC radios and untrained operators have no idea as to what to do when they receive a DSC distress relay ( it’s supported to be forwarded by voice only )
In this part of the world I’ve never seen a DSC distress relay.
I'm going to assume that that was not a dig but rather a legitimate comment. I am an untrained VHF operator. But I'm certainly not inexperienced! What exactly should I do with the alarm? It goes off. The manual says I can silence the alarm by pressing clear, so I do. I then go into the menu and I can see that the alarm was a distress relay. At that point, I shrug and go back on deck. What should I do differently?

One of my biggest frustrations with this issue, beyond the embarrassment of it blaring across an anchorage, is that I have no idea what to do with the facts. I am not ignoring a sinking or burning vessel out of indifference, but rather out of ignorance.
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Old 04-08-2022, 07:29   #28
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Re: VHF alarm

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Originally Posted by sailingharry View Post
I'm going to assume that that was not a dig but rather a legitimate comment. I am an untrained VHF operator. But I'm certainly not inexperienced! What exactly should I do with the alarm? It goes off. The manual says I can silence the alarm by pressing clear, so I do. I then go into the menu and I can see that the alarm was a distress relay. At that point, I shrug and go back on deck. What should I do differently?

One of my biggest frustrations with this issue, beyond the embarrassment of it blaring across an anchorage, is that I have no idea what to do with the facts. I am not ignoring a sinking or burning vessel out of indifference, but rather out of ignorance.
In theory, if the VHF is hooked up to a plotter and there's location data included in the DSC alert, you should be able to see the location on the plotter. To me, that's the one big advantage of DSC over having to copy down and plot a location from a voice transmission.
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Old 04-08-2022, 07:46   #29
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Re: VHF alarm

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Originally Posted by rslifkin View Post
In theory, if the VHF is hooked up to a plotter and there's location data included in the DSC alert, you should be able to see the location on the plotter. To me, that's the one big advantage of DSC over having to copy down and plot a location from a voice transmission.


I had been looking at VHFs that could connect to RM Axiom and could not find any. What you are mentioning seemed only to exist with one brand (can’t recall, was it B&G?) on the upper range model. If you know of any compatible with RM, I’m interested to hear which one, as indeed the connection would be much useful (I was thinking of being able to call a dangerous target directly from the plotter)
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Old 04-08-2022, 08:39   #30
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Re: VHF alarm

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I had been looking at VHFs that could connect to RM Axiom and could not find any. What you are mentioning seemed only to exist with one brand (can’t recall, was it B&G?) on the upper range model. If you know of any compatible with RM, I’m interested to hear which one, as indeed the connection would be much useful (I was thinking of being able to call a dangerous target directly from the plotter)
Many VHFs only support NMEA0183, not NMEA2000. You don't need brand matching for the DSC distress position display to work, although you generally do need brand matched stuff if you want to be able to select an AIS target on the plotter and tell the VHF to call it (this isn't implemented in as standard a way across brands).
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