DSC Talks at your club

[Jon Brooks]

I may have mentioned this before but worth a reminder!

Are any clubs looking for a evening talks?

We here at Icom offer "FREE" DSC talks.

We have been doing them for about 18months or so now with some great feedback.

I would like to stress it is not a sales talk from Icom, it is a talk about DSC.
How it works,
The pro's and con's,
How it effects you,
And a bit about us.

Lasts about 1.5hrs.
Great filler for those winter club nights.

If anyone is interested please contact me or Phil Holmes here at Icom.

Regards

[Pete7]

Excellent idea, will be in touch in the New Year.

Pete

[Jon Brooks]

Originally Posted by Pete7

Excellent idea, will be in touch in the New Year.

Pee

I do have them every once in a while!

Regards

[brucehawsker]

Can I be brutally honest?

As a newbie it was hard enough to pluck up courage and use conventional VHF to call Solent Coastguard, find out things were not 100%, work out I could not get a clear ' line ' when I was on dual watch.....

Now I am sort of scared to try DSC at all. I know it is there in an emergency, and am very pleased to have it. But not being able to 'play' safely is a problem.

The VHF course was all very well back in July, but since then I have been debugging the build of my rib when I have been out (it was delivered late September) and the radio has not been a priority.

Am I alone in being a little awed by the technology, never having used a radio to transmit before in my life?

[Jimbob]

Brucehawsker

I am sure we all forget to use the correct methods sometimes e.g forgetting to say out, i do it . however

1) Dont arrange your meal arrangement on channel 16 as some dickhead was doing 2 weeks ago somewhere on the Solent
2) Get to know the Distress (DSC),
3) If you test the VHF call the marina or a mate
4) The coastguard understands that you may be in trouble, they are nice chaps, apart from if you do 1) or do radio checks

[tim griffin]

Originally Posted by brucehawsker

Can I be brutally honest?

As a newbie it was hard enough to pluck up courage and use conventional VHF to call Solent Coastguard, find out things were not 100%, work out I could not get a clear ' line ' when I was on dual watch.....

Now I am sort of scared to try DSC at all. I know it is there in an emergency, and am very pleased to have it. But not being able to 'play' safely is a problem.

The VHF course was all very well back in July, but since then I have been debugging the build of my rib when I have been out (it was delivered late September) and the radio has not been a priority.

Am I alone in being a little awed by the technology, never having used a radio to transmit before in my life?

Hi Bruce why don't you get in touch with your instructor and ask for a half day refresher , i am sure he will oblige .That way if he is using the proper simulators ie ICOM and SIMRAD you will be able to have a good play and go over part of the course that is relevant to your needs

[Rogue Wave]

Bruce

You are welcome to come out with us on the Tug one night if you so wish! We are generally out for about eight hours and you can be the VHF guy and also familiarise yourself with some night vision techniques.

I am not dissing the refresher course I think it's a good diea but if you want some real world practice as well then you are welcome.

As we cross the shipping lanes we have to do a lot of communicating with other bridges to see if they will alter course or slow down for us.

The other day I got the master of the QM2 to slow down for us and he even called me Sir (if he only knew!)

[Jonny Fuller]

Originally Posted by Rogue Wave

Bruce

and also familiarise yourself with some night vision techniques.

Stu, I quite like the oul 'Torch under the bed sheets' approach myself

[Jon Brooks]

Bruce

Confidence comes with practice.
Don't be scared of the radio or the C/G as others have said they are nice people really as long as you are not doing wot you should not.

Everyone makes mistakes with the way they say things, even the pro's.
As long as you avoide the don'ts that Jim mentioned you will be fine.
We were all new once, we all had to start somewhere.

Try and find a training school with radio simulators you can play with.
They are in effect real radio's rather than pc based simulators.
you can get used to sendng "live" DSC messages and "live" voice calls with real kit but in a safe way.

Some schools use our simulators, some use Simrad's, both are good.
IMHO, as a radio instructor not as the man from Icom, they are much better than the PC based simulators

Hope that helps

[David Hickman]

Fully agree with Jon. I have the M601 simulators and the RYA PC programme which is such a nightmare sometimes to use. 601's win everytime with pupils on our courses.