At 12:02 PM 1/25/2005 -0800, you wrote: >I wouldn't go so far as to call it a "gadget," but right now I don't >regard it as a significant benefit. Maybe more of a "nice to have," >rather than a "have to have." I would definitely agree with that. It seems that most people have no idea what a DSC emergency broadcast looks like or sounds like, so don't count on somebody with a DSC equipped radio coming to your rescue. I learned this last winter down in Puerto Vallarta. Since the VHF is the telephone for cruisers, virtually everybody has their VHF on at all times. A peaceful sunny afternoon was interrupted by the distress tone of a DSC alert coming from our radio. At the time we were in a marina and I could hear the tone coming from numerous boats around us as well. I recorded the lat/lon from our radio display in preparation for plotting it. Almost immediately everybody was yacking on the radio asking what that tone was about and why did their radio automatically change to channel 16. I don't think there was more than a handful of us that actually knew what the signal meant. A couple of us spent time on 16 and 22 (cruisers us 22 down there as the telephone party line) explaining to others what the signal meant. The longitude displayed was for 105E, yes east. We were at 105W, so the reported fix was on the opposite side of the earth from us. Not very likely. The latitude was fairly close. Swapping W for E in the longitude, thinking it was a communications error, gave me a fix not too far away, but about 5 miles inland. I raised the USCG via SSB and relayed the distress call to them. I figured the likelihood of effectively communicating it to them was much higher than if I tried my rusty incomplete Spanish on the Port Captain who most likely has never heard of DSC. After reporting it, being asked to stand by, providing the details again, being asked to stand by again, being asked for the details yet again, the Coast Guard thanked me for the relay and that's the last I heard of it. I consider the average cruiser to be more knowledgeable than the average boater in general, and yet, an estimated 90% of them had no idea what a DSC emergency signal was. Don't count on DSC for anything but easily contacting your buddy for quite a while. Jim Jim McCorison Starfish Marine (619) 337-5370 http://www.starfishmarine.com