In article ,
Dave wrote:

On Thu, 17 Jul 2008 21:20:45 GMT, Bruce in alaska said:

I'm talking real world here. The world of gummint regulations is different.
Do you really use 16 to hail other boats up there?
[snip]

Weekend Warriors are NOT the largest users of Maritime Radios
on this planet, contrary to popular belief

Perhaps I should have phrased the question with more specificity. Didn't
think it was necessary given the name of the group. So let's try again:

Do pleasure boaters generally use 16 to hail other boats up there?

Since "Pleasure boaters" are a small minority of vessels navigating
the alaskan waters, YES, they usually do their calling on VHF Ch 16,
UNLESS it is to call a Traveling Mate vessel on a prearranged Channel,
like VHF Ch 9. All the local Harbor Masters monitor Ch 16, as well
as their working Channel, which in my area is Ch 9. I just spent the
last three days listening to the USCG Cutter Liberty, doing boardings
of "Pleasure boats" out in Icy Straights, and they did ALL their calling
on Ch 16, and working on Ch 22A. Only heard one guy, who couldn't figure
out how to switch to 22A, and they did work him on Ch 9, after convincing
him that Ch 16 was not the place to communicate traffic. He also failed
the Boarding Inspection, and is now tied up to My Dock, as the closest
Port of Call, waiting for a package from town, to fullfill his lack of
Emergency Flares and a Whistle. Amazing for a $250K "Pleasure boat"....
Had a nice chat with the CPO, at the Port Captian's Office for
Southeastern Alaska, about what it would take to send this fellow on his
way. As soon as Possible. Don't want him pumping his bilge at my dock,
either by accident or on purpose.

--
Bruce in alaska
add path after fast to reply

In article ions,
"Capt. JG" wrote:

"Dave" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 17 Jul 2008 21:20:45 GMT, Bruce in alaska said:

I'm talking real world here. The world of gummint regulations is
different.
Do you really use 16 to hail other boats up there?
[snip]

Weekend Warriors are NOT the largest users of Maritime Radios
on this planet, contrary to popular belief

Perhaps I should have phrased the question with more specificity. Didn't
think it was necessary given the name of the group. So let's try again:

Do pleasure boaters generally use 16 to hail other boats up there?


How do you tell? I think these days people use their cell phones. They could
use Nextel and pretend their walkie-talkies. "Got your ears on good buddy?"

You listen to the Traffic on Channel 16, Channel 9, and having done so
as a Regulator in the past, knowing what to listen for.

--
Bruce in alaska
add path after fast to reply

In article
,
" wrote:

On Jul 17, 2:20*pm, Bruce in alaska wrote:
...
Just about ALL commercial Vessels use 16 for Calling, no matter where
they are in the world. It is what Channel 16 was meant to be used for,
and why ALL commercial vessels are required to maintain a Watch on
Channel 16 while navigating, no matter the size of the vessel. ...

Yes but there are important exceptions. In many places in the US of A
commercial vessels maintain a watch on 13 & VTS and do not watch 16.
See 33 CFR 26 particularly 26.04 (d). This is unfortunate and can be
confusing but if your life depends on getting in touch with a tug here
in SF Bay you better call on 13.

-- Tom.

Well actually, if a vessel is REQUIRED to be under VTS Control, then they
are exempt from maintaining a Watch on Ch 16 while under VTS Control,
but the VTS System Operators are then responsible to forward any
Distress or Safety Traffic to ALL vessels under their control. Any
Navigation Traffic would be passed on the Bridge to Bridge Channel 13.
Once you understand that ALL Vessels over 20 Meters in length, or Towing,
are Required to comply with the Bridge to Bridge Radiotelephone Act,
which requires a continuous Watch on Vhf Ch. 13 while the vessel is
Navigating. Then if you are near a VTS System, as a Voluntary Equipped
Vessel would use Ch 13 to pass any Navigation Traffic to a VTS controlled
Vessel. Traffic going from a VTS controlled vessel to a voluntary
Equipped Vessel would use the VTS Channel Radio to temporarily move to
Ch 16 for calling, and move to Ch 13 for working the voluntary Equipped
Vessel. Most Bridge to Bridge REQUIRED Vessels have a Third VHF Fitted
just to relieve the above situation, and as a Hot Standby Spare, should
one of the other REQUIRED Radios Fail.

--
Bruce in alaska
add path after fast to reply

In article ,
wrote:

On Thu, 17 Jul 2008 15:01:13 -0700, "Capt. JG" wrote:

wrote in message
...
On Jul 17, 2:20 pm, Bruce in alaska wrote:
...
Just about ALL commercial Vessels use 16 for Calling, no matter where
they are in the world. It is what Channel 16 was meant to be used for,
and why ALL commercial vessels are required to maintain a Watch on
Channel 16 while navigating, no matter the size of the vessel. ...

Yes but there are important exceptions. In many places in the US of A
commercial vessels maintain a watch on 13 & VTS and do not watch 16.
See 33 CFR 26 particularly 26.04 (d). This is unfortunate and can be
confusing but if your life depends on getting in touch with a tug here
in SF Bay you better call on 13.

-- Tom.


Yes... there have been a couple of incidents where people didn't do this and
had problems. Monitor 14, hail on 13.



I thought channel 13 was officially designated for bridge to bridge traffic.
Bridges of ships, and the operators of those spans over the river. Why would
you
monitor 14 if the hailing will be on 13?

because in some places the VTS Control Channel, is VHF Ch 14. It would
depend on just which VTS System you are in, and which Government is
operating it. Canadians like to use some different VHF channels in their
VTS Systems.

--
Bruce in alaska
add path after fast to reply

"Bruce in alaska" wrote in message
...
In article ions,
"Capt. JG" wrote:

"Dave" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 17 Jul 2008 21:20:45 GMT, Bruce in alaska
said:

I'm talking real world here. The world of gummint regulations is
different.
Do you really use 16 to hail other boats up there?
[snip]

Weekend Warriors are NOT the largest users of Maritime Radios
on this planet, contrary to popular belief

Perhaps I should have phrased the question with more specificity.
Didn't
think it was necessary given the name of the group. So let's try again:

Do pleasure boaters generally use 16 to hail other boats up there?


How do you tell? I think these days people use their cell phones. They
could
use Nextel and pretend their walkie-talkies. "Got your ears on good
buddy?"

You listen to the Traffic on Channel 16, Channel 9, and having done so
as a Regulator in the past, knowing what to listen for.

--
Bruce in alaska
add path after fast to reply


No, what I was saying was that how do you know if boaters are using their
cell phones... the answer is that they have their hand glued to their ear.
LOL



--
"j" ganz @@
www.sailnow.com

On Fri, 18 Jul 2008 22:05:44 +0200, "Edgar"
wrote:


"Larry" wrote in message
.. .
Ryk wrote in
:

Do I need more to be legit in the US?

Let's make a deal. You get your bureaucrats to stop forcing us to buy an
expensive ship license just to go to Canada......and we'll get our
bureaucrats to stop forcing you to buy an expensive ship license just to
go
to Florida.

Deal?

One of the benefits of the "New World Order" finally creating the North
American Union will be "local" will be all the way to the southern tip of
Mexico and our Ameros will all be the same money. No license will be
necessary for any NAU ship in this hemisphere....


Hi Larry.
Maybe you can answer this one for me.
I imported my boat from USA and it was equipped with a nice little Standard
Horizon Eclipse + VHF set.
Over here you need a licence to use VHF even on a pleasure boat and they
refused to licence this set for me, saying that it had 'American channels'
on it and could not be licenced in Europe.
I had to state on my licence application exactly what set I was using
and.had to replace it with a locally approved ICOM set.
I had powered up the Standard Horizon and channel 16 seemed to be the same
and all the other channels had familiar numbers. I found no problem picking
up ship-to ship traffic either.
Certainly there were some additional channels, which I gather were weather
channels, which were unfamiliar to me...
Are the niumbered channels the same everywhere, even if in different areas
their designated usage may vary?
Do you think they were unreasonable to make me take this set out?
..

Apparently there are different channels depending on whether you are
in the US or outside as my ICOM has a selection - USA and INT.

Bruce-in-Bangkok
(correct Address is bpaige125atgmaildotcom)

On Jul 18, 2:44*pm, Bruce in alaska wrote:
...
Well actually, if a vessel is REQUIRED to be under VTS Control, then they
are exempt from maintaining a Watch on Ch 16 while under VTS Control,
but the VTS System Operators are then responsible to forward any
Distress or Safety Traffic to ALL vessels under their control.

Amen. Just want to point out that VTS isn't a radio relay service so
you have to remember to call commercial traffic on 13 when in a VTS
area.

-- Tom.

"Roger Long" wrote in
:

Once in Canadian waters where the
applicabile regulations require the ship station and operators'
licences, thus the call sign, I will switch over to using the
callsign.


"Stray Dog, Stray Dog, this is Lionheart, WDB6254, ovah?"

(long hissing noise while Joe rummages around looking for the wireless
VHF mic I installed with the new radio on Stray Dog.)

"Lionheart, Lionheart this is Stray Dog, WDF4261, go to 68, out."

Same exchange on Channel 68, if it's clear, of course.

AS you won't be there over a couple of minutes, you only need to id upon
COMPLETION of your transmissions. As far as I've ever known, you are
not required to use the callsign of the other ship, and that is common
practice identifying your station, even on HF.

Unlike ham radio, where we are REQUIRED to give our callsign at LEAST
every 10 minutes during our monologues which can go on for hours, ad
nauseum, I don't think I've ever seen an ID interval for marine radio
like that. It would be a good idea, however, to just say, "WDB6254 for
ID" every 10 minutes if the transmissions are going to be that
long....****ing everyone off on the channel.

"NMB, NMB, NMB this is WDB6254, sailing vessel "Lionheart", ovah...?"

(repeated the call 4 times and got no answer on Ch 16)

"Coast Guard Group Charleston, this is "Lionheart", ovah?"

(got an immediate response).....

They didn't know NMB was their callsign....I swear it!

Too funny....(c;

By the way, here's a very complete list of US Gummit callsigns,
including most all the USCG identities I found.
http://www.ominous-valve.com/feds.txt
KCC61 is the FBI in Boston. Until your ship license comes in, just use
their callsign. Noone will notice as noone seems to care.

73 DE WDB6254 SK SK

NNNN - They always put NNNN at the end of important-looking teletype
messages so you'll know when this blather ends and the next blather
begins....(c;

"Edgar" wrote in
news
Hi Larry.
Maybe you can answer this one for me.
I imported my boat from USA and it was equipped with a nice little
Standard
Horizon Eclipse + VHF set.
Over here you need a licence to use VHF even on a pleasure boat and
they refused to licence this set for me, saying that it had 'American
channels' on it and could not be licenced in Europe.
I had to state on my licence application exactly what set I was using
and.had to replace it with a locally approved ICOM set.
I had powered up the Standard Horizon and channel 16 seemed to be the
same and all the other channels had familiar numbers. I found no
problem picking up ship-to ship traffic either.
Certainly there were some additional channels, which I gather were
weather
channels, which were unfamiliar to me...
Are the niumbered channels the same everywhere, even if in different
areas their designated usage may vary?
Do you think they were unreasonable to make me take this set out?


Many of the channels on VHF are "duplex" channels where you transmit on
a totally different frequency than you receive. "Simplex" channels
transmit and receive on the same frequency, like Channel 16 on 156.800
Mhz.

In different parts of the world, the channel bandplans evolved
completely differently. Maritime Telephone Operators on duplex
channels, is a good example of why. National governments had no
coordination until the mess that was created was taken over by the
International Telecommunications Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland.

Standard Horizon must be really short on disk space in their pitiful
website, so the owner's manual of the Eclipse Plus and all the old
models is gone, but you'll find a U/I button on the front of it. U
means US channels and frequency sets. I is for Canada and International
channels on the rest of the planet. Why you got rejected for a license
for it is this button which allows you to go to the US channels they
don't want you to have access to, which is kind of stupid.

A word about this specific radio. I had one in my jetboat. It's a
piece of crap! Water leaked in around the poorly sealed "waterproof"
speaker in the front of it. When, not if, seawater leaks in around the
speaker it drops straight onto the main circuit board right under the
speaker. If you have it mounted pointing slightly upward so you can see
the front panel and point the speaker at you, the tilt on the main
circuit board will cause the seawater leaking in to run back across the
board, eating everything in its path on the way. This I could tolerate.

But, alas, the water finally comes up against the back wall of the radio
inside the "waterproof case" and cannot escape. The main RF power
amplifier of this radio, and most VHF radios, does NOT GET SWITCHED on
and off by the on/off switch! The amp is a class C FM amp and NORMALLY
draws no DC power when idle due to its Class C biasing.
HOWEVER.....HOWEVER, when sea water leakes into the case around the
crappy speaker, it POOLS UP around the BIAS PINS of the main RF power
amplifier IC BRICK at the back of the circuit board...DRIVING IT INTO
CONDUCTION! The IC merely gets hot, very hot but not hot enough to blow
itself. Mine drew 3A of steady current and the rear heat sink
disappated 36 watts of heat....UNTIL IT KILLED MY DAMNED BOAT BATTERY
DEADER THAN DEAD, sitting on the trailer under the cover.

Of course, after getting the trailer backed down the ramp in line with
the rest at the public boat ramp....THE BOAT WAS DEAD MEAT when I wanted
to play!

It took me a while to find the constant current load causing the battery
to drain out......

Just thought you'd like to know for when yours leaks.....

I put in an Icom M59 and it never faltered....

The Standard was given the "Deep Six Standard Funeral" and is free for
the diving in the middle of Charleston Harbor if the dredge missed it.

"Larry" wrote in message
...
"Edgar" wrote in
news Many of the channels on VHF are "duplex" channels where you transmit on
a totally different frequency than you receive. "Simplex" channels
transmit and receive on the same frequency, like Channel 16 on 156.800
Mhz.

In different parts of the world, the channel bandplans evolved
completely differently. Maritime Telephone Operators on duplex
channels, is a good example of why. National governments had no
coordination until the mess that was created was taken over by the
International Telecommunications Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland.

Standard Horizon must be really short on disk space in their pitiful
website, so the owner's manual of the Eclipse Plus and all the old
models is gone, but you'll find a U/I button on the front of it. U
means US channels and frequency sets. I is for Canada and International
channels on the rest of the planet. Why you got rejected for a license
for it is this button which allows you to go to the US channels they
don't want you to have access to, which is kind of stupid.

A word about this specific radio. I had one in my jetboat. It's a
piece of crap! Water leaked in around the poorly sealed "waterproof"
speaker in the front of it. When, not if, seawater leaks in around the
speaker it drops straight onto the main circuit board right under the
speaker. If you have it mounted pointing slightly upward so you can see
the front panel and point the speaker at you, the tilt on the main
circuit board will cause the seawater leaking in to run back across the
board, eating everything in its path on the way. This I could tolerate.

But, alas, the water finally comes up against the back wall of the radio
inside the "waterproof case" and cannot escape. The main RF power
amplifier of this radio, and most VHF radios, does NOT GET SWITCHED on
and off by the on/off switch! The amp is a class C FM amp and NORMALLY
draws no DC power when idle due to its Class C biasing.
HOWEVER.....HOWEVER, when sea water leakes into the case around the
crappy speaker, it POOLS UP around the BIAS PINS of the main RF power
amplifier IC BRICK at the back of the circuit board...DRIVING IT INTO
CONDUCTION! The IC merely gets hot, very hot but not hot enough to blow
itself. Mine drew 3A of steady current and the rear heat sink
disappated 36 watts of heat....UNTIL IT KILLED MY DAMNED BOAT BATTERY
DEADER THAN DEAD, sitting on the trailer under the cover.

Of course, after getting the trailer backed down the ramp in line with
the rest at the public boat ramp....THE BOAT WAS DEAD MEAT when I wanted
to play!

It took me a while to find the constant current load causing the battery
to drain out......

Just thought you'd like to know for when yours leaks.....

I put in an Icom M59 and it never faltered....

The Standard was given the "Deep Six Standard Funeral" and is free for
the diving in the middle of Charleston Harbor if the dredge missed it.


Thanks, Larry. I will print that out and put it in the box where the set is
languishing just in case anyone should be tempted to fire it up again...