[TheList] HF DSC

Sun Jan 2 18:38:03 AEDT 2011

Hi Ditz

Thanks for your very detailed reply. This is the exact reason I/we have kept this list going through thick and thin and name changes . . . banks of knowledge like you (and many others).

Cheers

On 02 Jan, 2011,at 02:40 PM, dpowell <dpowell at clear.net.nz> wrote:

Hi Andy
I guess you wouldn't remember me for the short time I spent with North Comms after my initial training period with you and the other training staff.
Anyway, I subsequently left and rejoined the Maritime Safety Organization after being made redundant when it changed hands from Telecom to BCL (which was why I joined your organization) and BCL eventually becoming Kordia.  So it was a shift from Auckland to Wellington where I still reside and doubt very much that I'll be heading back Auckland way any time soon.
I digress......... in answer to your question below (sorry it's taken so long to respond, it's was one of those years) I hope this enlightens you and others who may have been interested:
1. The first message is an incorrectly formatted station call from MMSI 412081780 (Zhuohai/BUWO) to Shanghai MRCC.  Zhuohai should have indicated the R/T frequency they wished the subsequent communications to be on.  It was also sent on the wrong frequency as the Category for the message was only routine, at a minimum it should have been Safety.
2.  The second message is an Urgency Geographic area call transmitted by RCC Australia/VIC and which preceded their Pan Pan call on 8291 kHz, as you mentioned.  This was the correct use of DSC.  And one would hope so since the communications unit is run by Kordia.
3.  You are correct, there is a lot of DSC test traffic.  Probably more than there should be.  We see on average 6000 - 7000 messages a day on the DSC frequencies 4/6/8/12 & 16 MHz.  Most are either incorrectly formatted or on the wrong DSC frequencies.  Correct procedure is for ship stations to test their DSC units once a week and only on one frequency (if successful with the first test).  This is plainly not happening.  One of our staff wrote up a report for an ITU survey on this issue about 5 years ago.  The only traffic we should see these frequencies are:
a)    Distress messages - Subsequent comms on R/T distress or NBDP distress frequencies
b)    Urgency messages- Subsequent comms on R/T or NBDP using frequencies as directed by the originating station in the RX/TX frequency fields.  At the MOC we always use the R/T distress frequencies for our message traffic