Marine Radio and DSC

[jimcr]

How many of you guys have your radio and your GPS Wired together to use the DSC feature on your radios.

Just curious if anyone else is doing this.

[Line Dancin]

I have mine set up. figured if it was there may as well take ten minutes and set it up. It is a neat saftey feature.

[1mainiac]

Mine has been setup for years I wish more would do it as depending on your radio features it is more than just a safety feature. First off for the safety part if your radio is correctly setup and you push the button every boat within radio range will know you are in distress and have your exact position if they have the feature. Any one who has your MMSI number will know it is you and all of this happens without anyone cluttering up the airwaves. Now for some other fun stuff your MMSI number can be used just like a phone number in many radios so if we share numbers and you wish to talk to me on ch 72 you scroll to my number enter 72 as the talk ch and hit send. My radio beeps and tells me you are calling do I accept I hit yes both of our radios switch to the talk ch and no one hears a thing. Second cool feature is position reports Lets say we are both fishing and you wonder where I am at you scroll to position request and my number and hit send on my end one of 3 things will happen depending on how I set mine up it will send you my position automatically or it will let me know you want a position request which I can accept or it will decline the request. Again we get to exchange info without cluttering up the air and giving away info we would rather not share yet. For tournaments you can get group MMSI numbers that everyone can enter in their radio and you can call the entire group and move them all to a common talk ch at the same time to give a announcement or pass info. and again it is all digital info that does not make a sound out of the speakers. Add in voice scrambling and we can chat all day privately. And since none of these signals will be picked up by a standard FM discriminator as long as we are radio range we can maintain private communication without bothering anyone.

[MY2SONS]

How many of you guys have your radio and your GPS Wired together to use the DSC feature on your radios.

Just curious if anyone else is doing this.

How do you go about doing this? Sounds like a good idea.

[jimcr]

Your radio must be one that has DSC and you need to also have a GPS with a nema output . Check your radio instructions for more info. Then as Jim said you will need a MMSI number which you can get through Boat US. I have made this a priority on my boat. Push one button and the Coast Guard will know your position if its ever needed. I also bought self inflating life jackets. They are small and comfortable. Having a smaller boat and the water is very cold sometimes and what happens if you hit your head and go over? I have slipped in my boat due to fish slime , and it just makes sense to ware them .

[anthonyyost]

I have this system operating on my boat, using Hummingbird radio and GPS/Fishfinder. I talked to the Coast Guard in Ludington 2 summers ago when I hooked the system up to find out if the Coast Guard monitors this type of signal and at that point they did not in Michigan. They said Wisconsin did, but given that this signal is line of sight, the probability of them receiving the signal from our side of Lake Michigan was not good. I have not checked lately to see if this has changed, but I hope it has. The ability to transmit an SOS with your coordinates is invaluable.

[jimcr]

Here is a slide show I found ,Boat US did it . The link came from The coast guard. Its called "Can you hear me" I only went a few minutes in but looks to be very informative.

http://www.boatus.com/foundation/dsc/player.html?WT.mc_id=400090

[anthonyyost]

That is good information.

[jimcr]

I have this system operating on my boat, using Hummingbird radio and GPS/Fishfinder. I talked to the Coast Guard in Ludington 2 summers ago when I hooked the system up to find out if the Coast Guard monitors this type of signal and at that point they did not in Michigan. They said Wisconsin did, but given that this signal is line of sight, the probability of them receiving the signal from our side of Lake Michigan was not good. I have not checked lately to see if this has changed, but I hope it has. The ability to transmit an SOS with your coordinates is invaluable.

Is there a coast guard station near you? if so I would give them a call or email them to confirm that . that was 2 years ago and this is suppose to be system wide.

[1mainiac]

The answer I keep getting from the Coast Guard is the system is not up yet this is due to needing to build the towers for coverage. The radios are however on and working if you push the button stuff will happen. As for when the system will be fully functional is anyone's guess but Muskegon Coast Guard and most of the stations and equipment have the feature as do most of the Sheriff patrol and DNR vessels. When the towers are up they will have complete coverage of the lake and will announce the system. Right now my guess is close to 80% or more of Lake Michigan is covered. VHF boat to boat is short distance due to the antenna height put the antennas up on a tower like the Coast Guard stations and you can talk quite a ways. Put a radio in a Helicopter at 800 ft and you can cover darn near the entire lake. If you want to see more DSC features go to ICOM's website for marine radios they have several videos that go into detail on what you can do with them. pretty much comes down to 3 versions of what DSC you have all transmit the same info from the red button. The most basic is pretty much send only with no dedicated receive so you can only get DSC signals when you are monitoring the channel. Class D radios have a monitor on the channel at all times and will pick up all distress calls and and calls to your MMSI number or group number if you have one. The basic Class D radio simply puts the info on your radio display and gives you audio alerts to look at the screen. They also contain a phone book of sorts that allows you to save MMSI numbers of friends so you can call them or do position requests from or to them. The top of the line radios also send info to your plotter which is cool as it will mark locations on your screen. So as a scenario lets say GLF sets his radio up and we share info he is on a good troll and having a blast and I am not I could do a series of position requests and mark his trail and troll direction and if I timed it correctly could even figure out his speed. Now I know where he is and what direction he is going so I could either get behind him and see if he missed anything or run in front of him and let him follow me. All of this is done without saying a word on the air and the only radios that hear or share info are ours unless we use a group number.

[jimcr]

The answer I keep getting from the Coast Guard is the system is not up yet this is due to needing to build the towers for coverage. The radios are however on and working if you push the button stuff will happen. As for when the system will be fully functional is anyone's guess but Muskegon Coast Guard and most of the stations and equipment have the feature as do most of the Sheriff patrol and DNR vessels. When the towers are up they will have complete coverage of the lake and will announce the system. Right now my guess is close to 80% or more of Lake Michigan is covered. VHF boat to boat is short distance due to the antenna height put the antennas up on a tower like the Coast Guard stations and you can talk quite a ways. Put a radio in a Helicopter at 800 ft and you can cover darn near the entire lake. If you want to see more DSC features go to ICOM's website for marine radios they have several videos that go into detail on what you can do with them. pretty much comes down to 3 versions of what DSC you have all transmit the same info from the red button. The most basic is pretty much send only with no dedicated receive so you can only get DSC signals when you are monitoring the channel. Class D radios have a monitor on the channel at all times and will pick up all distress calls and and calls to your MMSI number or group number if you have one. The basic Class D radio simply puts the info on your radio display and gives you audio alerts to look at the screen. They also contain a phone book of sorts that allows you to save MMSI numbers of friends so you can call them or do position requests from or to them. The top of the line radios also send info to your plotter which is cool as it will mark locations on your screen. So as a scenario lets say GLF sets his radio up and we share info he is on a good troll and having a blast and I am not I could do a series of position requests and mark his trail and troll direction and if I timed it correctly could even figure out his speed. Now I know where he is and what direction he is going so I could either get behind him and see if he missed anything or run in front of him and let him follow me. All of this is done without saying a word on the air and the only radios that hear or share info are ours unless we use a group number.

But you must know his MMSI # . What is most important is that if you have it hook it up,Because not only will the coast guard get this info. everyone who has the DSC radio and it is functioning will be able to help out.

I will let you guys know how mine turns out , I am still looking for a chart plotter. We have the boat show for the next 10 days and I hope to get some more info there.

[1mainiac]

Very True and when you look at plotters make sure it has NEMA in and out many of them have several NEMA inputs and 1 output 1 out is all you need because the output can be shared with multiple devices some of the inputs are specific use so make sure it will accept data returns from your radio if your radio has a NEMA output my current radio does not send to the plotter however my plotter can accept a return so I plan on upgrading to a better radio but since for the last 3 years I have been bringing this up every year and no one seems to care to share info there is little sense spending money to gain a feature that no one wants to use. Sadly most guys figure a radio is somewhat needed but want to get the cheapest one they can as they see no other use than rag chewing and the once in a lifetime emergency call. The truth is the radio can be very helpful if you use it and since everyone wants to keep their secrets the DSC feature makes much of that possible. With DSC you can share your info with your friends often without a spoken word on the air. Think of this your radio beeps letting you know I am calling you accept the call the radio switches to another channel and I say we are killing them on Yellow tails 60 to 70 dn on the rigger and divers 160 to 180 back. You can do a position request and see where I am at and even get my track if you do a couple of requests. We just shared some pretty exact info without letting the entire fleet know what is up. A couple of years ago I was trying to get a friend of mine to follow my troll because we were killing the Steelhead When I turned to go back there had to be 20 boats following me. And I had miles of empty water around me before I went on the air to get my friend to come to where I was. Use it or don't use it but if you have the feature you might as well try and get more use out of it then the one thing none of ever want to have happen. The reason I say it that way is part of the idea behind the red button is you push it before you abandon ship and it continues to send you position and emergency call while you try and save your life. For normal distress calls you would not use the DSC you would call the Coast Guard normally and talk to them. DSC stands for Digital Select Calling and was designed to allow private calls ship to ship and to send encoded messages. The distress feature is a add on that was adopted by the Coast Guard but is not yet fully implemented. You will note if you read your radio manual that all of the DSC features are about selective calling except for the red button.

[jimcr]

For anyone who is interested this is what I recieved back from the coast guard on the dsc system , which is called Rescue 21.

Could you tell me the Status of Rescue 21 on the Great Lakes,

specifically Lake Michigan , Milwaukee area

Thank You

Sir: In October 2010 Rescue 21 became operational in Sector Detroit. Rescue 21 is scheduled to be deployed and operational in Lake Michigan by 2012. Please contact me directly if you have questions about a coverage in a specific area within the Great Lakes.

Very respectfully,

Richard Kanehl

Communications Manager (CG-925)

Acquisition Directorate

U.S. Coast Guard

2100 2nd St SW Stop 7111

Washington, DC 20593-7111

[1mainiac]

Just point of clarification DSC and Rescue 21 are not the same thing. Rescue 21 is being built based on a DSC feature DSC has been around for many years once the Coast Guard determined that DSC was a viable communication option they adopted it and began the Rescue 21 program. And the FCC reclassified radios to include the distress call in anticipation of the program. DSC is one of the things that makes cell phones work and switches your phone from tower to tower as you travel. By incorporating GPS and DSC you have the basis for Rescue 21 the distress signal has a high priority level in the code that will trigger all DSC radios that are monitoring the DSC frequency. However not all radios monitor the DSC channel so you have different classifications of DSC capable radios. Simply put having the red button does not mean you have all the features. My current radio is a basic radio which I planned on replacing 3 years ago with a full featured radio but since it does work and no one seems interested in using the features I have not bothered to spend the money to upgrade. When you move up to a radio like the ICOM 504 or the Raymarine 55 or better radios you get NEMA in and out you also get a phone book so to speak where you can store friends MMSI numbers and group MMSI numbers that you can use for a number of things. The basic DSC radios like my West Marine radio do very little other than to transmit the distress call and you have to switch to ch 70 to do that. It will also recive basic DSC info it you are on ch 70 but if you are not monitoring ch 70 then you will not receive any DSC info. The next step up has tri watch and will monitor several ch at once and will always monitor ch 70 nearly all of these include a small phone book section and will send and receive DSC signals and info such as position request and private calls but they only send the info to the radio screen usually with a alert beep to let you know to check your screen for a message. Top end radios will have the ability to send and receive data to your plotter which means the distress call you get may even have you friends name if in you phone book and position marked on your plotter. Ok I am a radio nut I accept that but lots of this stuff is cool and once you learn to use it you will wonder how you fished without it.

[scgibby11]

I've done this.