|
|
Post by Fogg on Dec 14, 2023 11:51:46 GMT 12
Just dropped Fogg back into the water (no skin fitting leaks btw)!
Running through various start-of season system checks including VHF check (I deliberately choose quiet weekday to call CG rather than joining the queue of muppets who think it’s clever to do a radio check on a Sat morning) 🙄
Anyway, this was the conversation:
Me: Coastguard radio this is ZMP4688 calling for a seasonal radio check please - over.
CG (instant reply): Good afternoon Fogg, reading you loud & clear, are you calling from Gulf Harbour?
Me: Affirmative. And many thanks for that. Speak to you again sometime. Fogg out.
Previously calling them using my callsign has resulted in them replying using my callsign (which is fine / normal). But I was surprised that the operator instantly knew both my vessel name and home location.
Anyone know if CG is now using some kind of speech recognition tech at their end, to assistant radio operators with vessel identification & look-up etc?
|
|
|
|
Post by fish on Dec 14, 2023 12:50:48 GMT 12
Just dropped Fogg back into the water (no skin fitting leaks btw)! Running through various start-of season system checks including VHF check (I deliberately choose quiet weekday to call CG rather than joining the queue of muppets who think it’s clever to do a radio check on a Sat morning) 🙄 Anyway, this was the conversation: Me: Coastguard radio this is ZMP4688 calling for a seasonal radio check please - over. CG (instant reply): Good afternoon Fogg, reading you loud & clear, are you calling from Gulf Harbour? Me: Affirmative. And many thanks for that. Speak to you again sometime. Fogg out. Previously calling them using my callsign has resulted in them replying using my callsign (which is fine / normal). But I was surprised that the operator instantly knew both my vessel name and home location. Anyone know if CG is now using some kind of speech recognition tech at their end, to assistant radio operators with vessel identification & look-up etc? I don't know about the speech recognition thing. But I've been doing my own radio checks. First thing is that everyone always calls Coastguard Radio, and Auckland Maritime Radio always respond. Very few people actually realise they are talking to Maritime instead of CG. I was out fishing in my dinghy, and wanted to check my handled has range and coverage, so did a radio check. Used the yachts callsign. They asked what my vessel name was, so I gave the brand of the dinghy (Argosy). Now when I call them they keep on calling me Argosy. I took the other dinghy out, which was a Java, and they still called me Argosy. I'm not sure what is going to happen when I'm on the yacht and use my callsign again. I'm fairly confused by it all actually. Haven't done anything about it yet as I'm currently spending alot more time fishing from the dinghy than I am cruising on the yacht. That might change on the 26th Dec though, weather permitting. PS Landed my first Kingfish on Monday. 2 rats (58cm). On 15lb braid of all things. Hooked 2 others up but they busted off, one busting 30lb braid on the first hook-up, very pissed off. Also hooked up a shark live-baiting. Never got to see it, but it was taking the dinghy sideways at over a knot before it bit through the 100lb flurocarbon leader... Even those little rat kingfish were spinning the dinghy around, back and forward, round and round. Fantastic sport fish. I'm thinking if a rat king does that though, there is a good chance I'm going to get a complete spanking if I manage to hook up a legal one. |
|
|
|
Post by Fogg on Dec 14, 2023 13:58:31 GMT 12
Radios. If you call on ch16 it’s 50:50 who responds between Maritime Radio vs CG. It also depends on how you call eg if you use the words coastguard they tend to reply but if you say something vague like “Auckland radio” then usually Maritime Radio will chime in and transfer you to Ch71.
Kingfish. I’ve caught a couple spear fishing with a buddy in the water plus a 3rd person in the dinghy. It was a major exercise for all 3 of us. Amongst other things getting the bleeding fish + ourselves out of the water ASAP to avoid more sinister interest appearing from the deep.
I concluded that landing a full-size Kingfish alone is a sport for only the most seasoned professional. Otherwise you risk getting snarled up in the line at best and potentially far worse.
I would never try it on my own but always have at least one buddy in the water even if we have to anchor the dinghy nearby.
Take care out there!
|
|
|
|
Post by Fogg on Dec 14, 2023 14:02:00 GMT 12
Lastly, the callsign confusion, I would simply call Cosstguard Operations by phone on a quiet weekday and explain what happened and ask them to reset their systems records to correctly re-match your boat name and callsign.
FYI, on the odd occasional when I’ve had to talk to CG or anyone else via handheld VHF from the dinghy, I simply use the suffix “mobile” in my name ie I call myself “Fogg mobile”.
This is fairly standard practise in other parts of the world but must admit I rarely hear it used here. But I like being different. 😊
|
|
|
|
Post by chariot on Dec 14, 2023 14:29:26 GMT 12
CG data base gives them your name and boat name when your call sigh is known. Was in the Whitianga radio room a while ago with 1 of their operators and he brought my new boat name up very easily along with another boat with the same name but different location. He did have to do a search for it though.
|
|
|
|
Post by Fogg on Dec 14, 2023 14:36:33 GMT 12
That makes sense but the thing that amazed me was the speed of response. The CG operator replied to me immediately and to have done a manual search she must have been literally sitting there with her hands hovering over the keyboard ready to type “ZMP4688” <Enter> all within about a second.
That’s what made me wonder if there was a speech recognition tool that heard my callsign and did an instant auto-search for her.
Oh well!
|
|
|
|
Post by fish on Dec 14, 2023 15:12:06 GMT 12
Lastly, the callsign confusion, I would simply call Cosstguard Operations by phone on a quiet weekday and explain what happened and ask them to reset their systems records to correctly re-match your boat name and callsign. FYI, on the odd occasional when I’ve had to talk to CG or anyone else via handheld VHF from the dinghy, I simply use the suffix “mobile” in my name ie I call myself “Fogg mobile”. This is fairly standard practise in other parts of the world but must admit I rarely hear it used here. But I like being different. 😊 Yes I should phone them and sort it out. I think when calling from the dinghy I should use "tender of Charlatan" to make it clear I'm in a 3m deflatable and not a 37ft yacht, especially if they need to come looking for me one day and they are looking for something that is not there, while I am there... On the Kingfish, I've been doing a bit of spearfishing. Always by myself and because of that always in shallow and safe water. I've been very keen to get a kingfish. On researching understand they are very easy to shoot because they are so inquisitive, but a feckin full on, no holds barred, bare knuckle fight to handle in the water. That, and as you rightly point out the taxman threat. They are much harder to catch fishing, but I do really appreciate the advantage I have of being in a boat or dinghy, out of the water, not needing to breath underwater, not having the immediate threat of entanglement in the lines and not worrying about getting beaten up or smacked in the chops by them. (Seasoned spearo's often get their masks knock off / blood noses / fat lips etc) As a rank amateur, I'm going for the boat and line option first. As an aside, my livebaiting exploits have resulted in zero kingfish and 4 shark hook-ups. One off the Noises mast have been very big, damn near yanked me overboard. I'm pondering flagging on the livebaiting and just doing topwater / jigging, just to avoid the shark by-catch. It is friggin amazeballs fighting a shark, but I have zero way of extracting the hook, and so far 75% of cases have bitten through the leader before I've even seen them. So I think there is a wee moral issue with that, and while everyone says livebaiting is the best way to catch kingfish, I can't consciously tolerate the shark by-catch. Unless I go down to Chains Ropes & Anchors and get some wire leader... hmmm... As another aside, I only really got into the spear-fishing as I was focused on smashing kina to balance up the marine environment. Given the amount of snapper I've been landing, think I might need to go on a concerted kina smashing mission again. |
|
|
|
Post by DuckMaster on Dec 14, 2023 15:48:33 GMT 12
A call sign is assigned to a person not a vessel.
|
|
|
|
Post by harrytom on Dec 14, 2023 16:33:17 GMT 12
A call sign is assigned to a person not a vessel. Yes/no We got a call sign many yrs ago for Tachyon 25ft keeler.1996. Has been transferred to many different vessels since and even when did not have a vessel still had my call sign. Just need to visit C/G website,fill in form and change vessel details,NO charge unless you have AIS. When changing vessels do not leave any indication onboard vessel you are disposing off re call sign. I had a plaque made up with call sign and just removed from vessel to vessel but as above change vessel detail form. |
|
|
|
Post by fish on Dec 14, 2023 17:45:00 GMT 12
A call sign is assigned to a person not a vessel. That must be why CG always ask for the vessel name. |
|
|
|
Post by DuckMaster on Dec 14, 2023 18:08:13 GMT 12
A call sign is assigned to a person not a vessel. That must be why CG always ask for the vessel name. Yep exactly. You're supposed to identify the vessel you're calling from when you call in. The call sign belongs to you the "holder" and is assigned to you. You can associate with as many vessels as you like. No one else should use your call sign. You can get a ship license, which is a call-sign for your vessel. You have to renew these every 12months. No one bothers unless they are going overseas and even then some people don't bother out of ignorance. |
|
|
|
Post by Fogg on Dec 14, 2023 18:34:43 GMT 12
You guys are partly right.
What you say about callsign mobility is true if your vessel has only got VHF. When you sell the vessel you can take the callsign with you and transfer it to a new vessel.
But if you have AIS (which requires a country-specific MMSI number to be assigned to the vessel) then the VHF callsign and the MMSI number become permanently ‘married’ and cannot be de-coupled later.
This happened to me when I sold Aleana - I had a cool VHF callsign which I really liked and wanted to take with me to Fogg. I was told “no”. I said “But I transferred it from Aily’s Comet to Aleana ok.” They told me “That’s because Aily’s Comet didn’t have AIS so the VHF callsign was free to move to a different vessel (Aleana). But then you added AIS to Aleana which created a new MMSI and that is now permanently linked to the VHF callsign. You cannot take that VHF callsign to another vessel anymore.”
Hence if you look up the AIS ID of a vessel on MarineTraffic it will show you all the details of the vessel including its MMSI and associated callsign. That means you can pick up the radio and hail that vessel confidently knowing that it will not have a different VHF callsign.
The only way to change this is to completely cancel both your AIS and VHF licenses for the boat.
|
|
|
|
Post by DuckMaster on Dec 14, 2023 19:04:48 GMT 12
You guys are partly right. What you say about callsign mobility is true if your vessel has only got VHF. When you sell the vessel you can take the callsign with you and transfer it to a new vessel. But if you have AIS (which requires a country-specific MMSI number to be assigned to the vessel) then the VHF callsign and the MMSI number become permanently ‘married’ and cannot be de-coupled later. This happened to me when I sold Aleana - I had a cool VHF callsign which I really liked and wanted to take with me to Fogg. I was told “no”. I said “But I transferred it from Aily’s Comet to Aleana ok.” They told me “That’s because Aily’s Comet didn’t have AIS so the VHF callsign was free to move to a different vessel (Aleana). But then you added AIS to Aleana which created a new MMSI and that is now permanently linked to the VHF callsign. You cannot take that VHF callsign to another vessel anymore.” Hence if you look up the AIS ID of a vessel on MarineTraffic it will show you all the details of the vessel including its MMSI and associated callsign. That means you can pick up the radio and hail that vessel confidently knowing that it will not have a different VHF callsign. The only way to change this is to completely cancel both your AIS and VHF licenses for the boat. That's correct but you are conflating several points. As you said, the call-sign (which incidentally is also country specific) and the mmsi number are tied. But they still both belong to the "holder". You can't split them. So you can't transfer the the call-sign and leave behind the mmsi. You can take both with you, but this creates a secondary problem where some radios don't allow the number to be changed so you would have to either sell without the transponder, or replace the transponder. But the mmsi and the call-sign belong to the "holder" (you). Your next point re: marine traffic, they have built this database from the ancillary information you have input into the ais transponder. If you changed the name of your boat in the transponder and the dimrnsions the marine traffic database will (eventually) get updated from your transponder broadcasts. |
|
|
|
Post by em on Dec 14, 2023 20:42:46 GMT 12
Just dropped Fogg back into the water (no skin fitting leaks btw)! Running through various start-of season system checks including VHF check (I deliberately choose quiet weekday to call CG rather than joining the queue of muppets who think it’s clever to do a radio check on a Sat morning) 🙄 Anyway, this was the conversation: Me: Coastguard radio this is ZMP4688 calling for a seasonal radio check please - over. CG (instant reply): Good afternoon Fogg, reading you loud & clear, are you calling from Gulf Harbour? Me: Affirmative. And many thanks for that. Speak to you again sometime. Fogg out. Previously calling them using my callsign has resulted in them replying using my callsign (which is fine / normal). But I was surprised that the operator instantly knew both my vessel name and home location. Anyone know if CG is now using some kind of speech recognition tech at their end, to assistant radio operators with vessel identification & look-up etc? Maybe they have some fancy AIS recognition software that pings the location of the vhf transmission ? . That would be very handy in an emergency situation if your kid/wife/crew needed to make a call and were clueless about procedures , callsign , boat name , position etc |
|
