How to Use a VHF Radio: Mayday Call Off Southern California

Hi sea kayakers and kayak fishermen. Welcome to another episode of Notes from a Local, your online audio resource for tips tools and pointers useful to sea kayakers and kayak fishermen around the world. I'm your host, Dave Williams, broadcasting on the web via Twitter at Sea Kayak.

Today's topic: vhf radio mayday calls and the Coast Guard watchstander backwards ten count.

One of the more confusing aspects of making a radio call to the Coast Guard is the sometimes lengthy number of requests the Coast Guard may have once they answer your call. And of those requests, perhaps none is more disconcerting than being asked repeatedly to count to ten, and then back down again.

The reasons for -count request are numerous. First, the watchstander might be having a hard time figuring out your position from the triangulations the radio crew are taking from your call. Second is that the Coast Guard has reason to suspect that your mayday call is a hoax and, in classic trace-that-phone-call delaying tactics, they want you to continue talking so they can trace where you call is coming form. Third is, the Coast Guard has a search and rescue boat out there looking for you, and they want you to keep talking so the rescue crew can get a fix on your location with their portable RF gear.

So one of the methods they'll use -- and it can be a confusing, potentially exasperating one if you're the caller -- is the slow ten count. The watchstander will ask you to count slowly to ten, then back down again, and likely have you repeat the whole rigamorole all over again.

Let's listen in on an example. In this call a young and calls the Coast Guard from the coast of southern California. Her boat is hard aground on a sand bar. You'll hear her initial mayday, the watchstander asking that she give her position via latitude and longitude, and finally the watchstander's request for further, more detailed information.

There's a couple of reasons for this rather lengthy exchange. One is that until the Coast Guard implements its Rescue 21 VHF radio/search and rescue system -- which helps the coast guard trace the location of mayday calls, no matter how brief - and even until after then, the Coast Guard always needs to know where you're calling from. Although they can triangulate your position with their high site antennas, the method is somewhat inexact, and gives the Coast Guard just a rough approximation of your location.

If you don't have a firm grasp of latitude and longitude, either because you don't carry a GPS or because your GPS is broken, or because you can't describe you location with landmarks, you and the Coast Guard are in a slightly untenable situation. Your mayday call is going to take a whole lot longer than you may have thought and, likewise, it twill take that much longer for the Coast Guard to find you. If your situation is dire, a time delay is likely to make your situation a whole lot worse.

So what's this gradeschool counting exercise all about? By asking you to count to 10 and down again, the watchstander and other regional Coast Guard stations have more time to triangulate your position. For example, note how the boater first has to respond one watchstander, and then another, at the offshore Channels Islands Coast Guard station x miles west of Los Angeles.

The second station takes the call because they have a search and rescue boat better equipped to deal with the call. And that boat sets out in the middle of the night to assist the caller, homing in on her ten-count transmissions. The rescue boat has a specialized directional radio receiver on board, and uses it to follow a vector to the caller's location by way of her ten-count. Thus the slow and repeated ten-counts:

There is one more element worth noting in this nearly half-hour long back-and-forth between the boater and the Coast Guard. Aside from being asked to count to ten, the Coast Guard asks the boater to take an inventory of their onboard flares. These will be helpful once the rescue boat crew are in range and need to pinpoint the caller's location visually. Listen as the watchstander asks the caller to light a flare and launch it. And finally, listen as the call becomes even more complex, as the station in Los Angeles issue a pan pan asking all area boaters to be on the lookout for the stranded boat, and to assist if they can.

So there you have it. If you're a sea kayaker kayak fishermen or small-boat user and you find yourself in enough trouble that you have to call the Coast Guard, be ready either to give your latitude and longitude, describe your location with landmarks, or go through the elaborate, laborious, and time-consuming task of maintaining radio contact with the Coast Guard with ten-counts so they can triangulate your position and home in on your radio signal. This can be inconvenient if not a little embarrassing. The name of your boat (in this case Wazoo), your situation and your voice, will be all over the airwaves. And not will your call tie up Channel 16, it could do so at a time when another boater is in trouble. Your best defense, and your way of being the most help to those who need to help you, is to know where you are, and to be able to describe where you are by either latitude and longitude or local landmarks.

Well that's it for today's installment of Notes from a Local ,your online audio resource for tips tools and pointers useful to sea kayakers, kayak fishermen, and small-boat users around the world. To learn more about vhf radio use, follow me on Twitter at Sea Kayak. I'm Dave Williams. Thanks for stopping by. And until next time, see ya 'round.