T&T: Mayday Responding ?

[Peter Bennett]

Wednesday, September 12, 2007, 8:50:28 AM, Todd wrote:

TM> Steven writes, "And why is there no foreseeable implementation of DSC by the
TM> US Coast Guard.  They wait painfully for people to recite their position
TM> when there is a practically free technology to put it directly on their
TM> plotter."

TM> "Why can't they go down to the store and buy a bunch of $300 dollar radios
TM> to use until they spend their 600 million dollars at the local defense
TM> contractor?"

<all of Todd's good comments snipped>

I believe that some Canadian Coast Guard stations on the West Coast do
have "normal" marine radios (same as we use on board) installed at the
control center - these could quite readily be replaced with
DSC-capable "normal" radios.

However, the CG normally use remote radios at remote sites, and these
are _not_ normal marine radios. I'd expect Victoria CG to have five or
six single-channel fixed frequency radios at each of their five sites
- you don't buy this sort of equipment at the corner West Marine for
$300 per site... (or even $300 per channel), and there is additional
equipment and expense in getting the voice and data from the remote
site to the controller.

-- 
Peter Bennett, VE7CEI    Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Ennos 31 "Honeycomb"
GPS and NMEA info: http://vancouver-webpages.com/peter 
Vancouver Power Squadron: http://vancouver.powersquadron.ca