On May 14, 8:31 am, Larry Weiss wrote:
Josh Assing wrote:
Anyone try using it yet? Anyone using it regularly. Anyone have their

yes. Semi-regularly.

MMSI? How many people have connected their VHF-DSC radio to their GPS
you can't use it w/o one.

Actually, that is not true. DSC works fine without a GPS hooked up. It
just won't be able to broadcast your position.



[snip]
I think the biggest problem is that people need to BUY a NEW radio. The only
reason I have one is that I bought a boat w/o a radio -- it wasn't much more to
get one with dsc - so i did. Most folks I know have older radios that work; so
they don't get new ones.

I don't think the need to buy a new radio is that much of an issue. DSC
has been required on VHF radios for years now (1999 I think). Most
boaters I know have VHF-DSC radios, but I don't know anyone who is using
the DSC feature yet.

Larry Weiss
"...Ever After!"

My VHF has DSC capability, and I haven't bothered to screw around
setting it up.
DSC takes a relatively straightforward technology, (VHF radio), and
makes it additionally complex without any actual really important
benefits. If I want to have a private conversation with somebody, I
will probably ring them on the cell phone.
In areas without cell phone coverage, I guess one simply needs to keep
the content of conversation restricted to topics that are OK for
others to overhear.

In a genuine emergency, it seems more reassuring to actually be
communicating, in person, with nearby boats, the USCG, etc. You can
verbally relay your coordinates based on a visual scan of the GPS. if
the GPS is "down" as a result of the emergency, then it would be of no
value to the DCS either.

Speaking of cell phones- the DSC pehnom reminds me a bit of a techno
tendency to make everything a lot more complex than it needs to be.
Last time I shopped for a cell phone the young saleslady was
enthusiastically listing all the capabiities of the product. "It takes
pictures, will store all of your digital music files, will pick up
your email, keep track of appointments, plays computer games, will
text message, will......"

I interrrupted her. "That's nice, but the only thing I'll ever do on a
cell phone is make a phone call." :-)