----- Original Message ----- From: [email protected] Norm wrote Norm wrote: I find that in high traffic areas the chatter on the VHF is too distracting for me to feel safe. I would rather concentrate on the traffic around me and not have my attention diminished by trying to figure out if the babble on the radio is something I need to respond to.
REPLY which is why DSC was developed. It is a digital selective means of calling to minimize the verbal clutter on Ch. 16 Unfortunately many recreational boaters are not fully cognisant of how to use the system and sometimes manufacturers do no fully explain things in their user manual. A friend who happens to be a VHF radio licence examiner won one of the newest ICOM DSC radios. He has a sailboat so he obtained the RAM remote mike and the radio mounts below at the nav station but the RAM is out in the cockpit. He wondered why he always got a message from Port angeles Coast guard station saying he was interfering with safety messages about 10 minutes after he left the harbor in vaocouver abotu 100 miles away. WTF??? Only after much checking and investigation did he get a response from ICOM. Turns out that if you turn on the radio then plug in the RAM this automatically generates a distress call on CH. 70 but if you first plug in the RAM then turn on the radio it does not. However ICOM does not mention this fact in their hand book for users of the radio. I'm guessing customer tech support were not aware of this quirk until my friends mentioned it. The unusual range was due to the fact the radio also transmits an uplink on ch 70 to overhead satellites complete with GPS position. So the effective range is greatly increased which explains why a statio 100 miles away would get his transmission. Incidentally many DSC installations are not properly programmed and configured and the problem is just as bad with AIS. Just go to any of the AIS harbor monitoring websits and you will see vessels under way reporting they are anchored or a vessel has impossible dimensions or is moving sideways. In fact many commercial vessels are reportedly setting a filter to deliberately exclude small craft from being reported.
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