Class A AIS (that used by SOLAS/Commercial vessels) is utterly dependent on GPS to function. Without it, the on-air interface will not work. AIS uses two VHF channels, and each channel is divided up into 2250 time slots per second. These time slots are aligned to UTC time, and without a GPS time base to keep all the transceivers on all the ships worldwide, the system simply doesn't work. In fact, all the standards related to AIS, and the type approval requirements for the transceivers expressly forbids them from transmitting if they do not have a GPS lock on their internal GPS.
Class B transcievers, those used on non-convention and recreational vessels are not tied to GPS time, but they function by listening to the time slot map, and then transmitting in empty slots if they're quiet enough. They don't work if there aren't class A transceivers in the area.
Well, technically determining longitude reliably (and easily) was actually quite hard, and only became a solved problem in the past 300 years or so. The development of the marine chronometer was one of the major events that helped make it easy to determine your longitude.
The humble chronometer was pretty much the atomic weapon of its time. The ability to reliably place themselves on the planet is what allowed the Royal Navy to rule the seas for a century or more.
On an unrelated note, if you're ever in London I strongly recommend a visit to the Admiralty Museum, and the Greenwich Observatory. They have Harrison's Chronometers on display, and they're still functional centuries later.
If the GPS is 1 degree off, you may not realize the problem until it is too late.
This would actually very difficult, if not impossible to achieve. GPS works by trilateration. The receiver computes its precise local time (atomic levels of accuracy), and uses that to calculate the distance to each of the satellites being used in the solution. Then, based on the precise time and its precise knowledge of the satellite orbits (which the satellites also transmit), it can figure out where it is.
In order for an adversary to shift the geographic position, they would have to completely replace the transmission received by the target receiver, and finely adjust the delays to the various satellites in view to cause a different solution to be computed.
Even then, the likelihood of all the receivers onboard falling prey to the deception is pretty low. A receiver on the other side of the superstructure would likely be shielded enough, a GPS compass wouldn't work right, and any satcom antennas would probably lose their lock. It'd have to be a pretty dumb crew to fall prey to it.
The article did not say, but I assume that the issue is primarily collision avoidance. This position data could be sent to AIS so that other ships know their position, speed, heading, DSC information, name for hailing purposes, etc.
AIS is dependent on GPS for timing and on-air data collision avoidance, in addition to actually encoding the ship's position. Without GPS, an AIS transponder is prohibited from transmitting. The transmission scheme has each second divided into 2250 time slots, and is strictly alligned to UTC time. Without the timing signal from the internal GPS receiver, a class-A AIS transceiver can not ensure that it will only occupy its own time slot(s).
On the other hand, GPS signals are spread spectrum, with significant FEC and error correction in them. From what I understand, most GPS jammers work by overwhelming the radio front-end, rather than by masking the original signal. If you were to replace the omni-directional antenna that is normally used for GPS with a directional one and aim it at the sky, that would go a long way to reduce the effectiveness of a jammer.
All ships use the AIS collision avoidance system. The sending ship sends a radio signal that contains information about the ship, its position (derived from GPS), and its course and speed. The receiving ship has a receiver that displays the information from nearby vessels (and its own position and course) overlaid on a chart. Without the position derived from GPS the system collapses.
Actually, without GPS, AIS will collapse, but not due to the loss of position signal. AIS is based on Self-organizing TDMA to manage on-air resources. Each second is divided up into 2250 time slots, which are precisely aligned with UTC seconds. The accuracy is such that for Class A beacons, this can only be derived from timing signals from the beacon's internal GPS receiver.
That said, AIS is only one tool in the arsenal. Ships also have dual radars, and if that goes bad, there's always the MK1 eyeball and MK0 ear.
I was out sailing this past weekend, and the visibility was utter shite. We passed within 2 miles of the Crystal Serenity, the largest cruise ship doing the Alaska run, and the only reason why we knew she was there was due to our radar, the fact that we heard her fog signals, her crew's chatter on the radio, and lastly because we had her on AIS. It's all about redundancy and alternate means.
And your GPS is faster, smaller, more accurate, and cheaper. With the modern multi-constellation receivers (GPS + Galileo + GLONASS) there's no reason to go back to LORAN. I sail, often in bad weather, limited visibility, and in isolated areas. GPS is the cat's meow.
There's no good way to "refine" plutonium once you have it. Just because you have large amounts of plutonium doesn't mean that you have the right isotope mix to build a functional nuclear weapon. It's virtually impossible to enrich Plutonium the same way that you can with Uranium. Most of what Japan has will be reactor grade Plutonium, which is far too reactive to use in a warhead; it's simply impossible to assemble the critical mass fast enough to produce anything other than a fizzle.
I wouldn't doubt, though, that Japan is "Nuclear Capable". If they had the desire, they could initiate a crash program and build a basic warhead in pretty quick order. However, it's not just Japan that could do so. Canada, and pretty much any other country with an indigenous nuclear industry and research capability could do so.
I don't think anyone is claiming they have a thermonuclear warhead. At most, they likely have a boosted fission device. Still plenty powerful, but much easier to make. Once you've got a functional implosion-type warhead, it's a pretty obvious move to add a system to inject a bit of tritium just prior to detonation. The tritium fuses due to the initial fission reaction, which in turn produces fast neutrons, which in turn causes additional fission of a U238 tamper, and the other, fissile material.
It's called "Selective Availability." But they can re-enable it at any time should some dumbasses in North Korea decide to use GPS.
Actually, they can't. The current block of satellites do not have the capability to enable SA. What they can do is turn the service off for a selected region either through nulling the antennas on the satellite, or outright shutting down the unencrypted signal in various areas.
Canada gave up its Nukes (US provided, dual-key arrangement) in 1984, and things have generally worked out pretty well. Canada has also decided not to persue its own program, despite having the nuclear capabilities and infrastructure required to do so.
Or you know, there is this ancient art known as "Sailing." Modern sailing vessels tend to be extremely efficient machines at moving from point A to point B, whether under sail or under motor. I just came back from spending 5 days on a 35,000 lb 48' sailboat. My friend and I were able to handle her by ourselves, even in gale conditions. When we were becalmed, we fired up the engine and burned about 1gph, moving at 7 knots. When the wind came back up to about 12 knots, we were able to get back up to hull speed (7kt), without much trouble.
Obviously this isn't as practical when it comes to the huge container ships and so forth, but when fuel prices spiked several years ago, there were a couple of proposals to outfit large ships with giant computer-controlled kites that would be able to provide significant propulsion to the ship.
One of the constants on the ocean is that more often than not, there's wind. Harnessing it is an art that coudl come back.
Yes, but they're still diesel engines. In theory, Diesel engines will burn pretty much anything flammable. Diesel himself originally tried to run his design on coal dust, before switching to peanut oil.
Diesel fuel as you buy it for road vehicles is basically No 2 fuel oil, which is pretty similar to heating oil and Jet-A/JP-5. There are subtle differences in the exact makeup, mostly related to lubricity (small diesels depend on the fuel to cool/lubricate the fuel pumps), and a few other specific properties.
Bunker fuel, aka No 6 aka Bunker C, is the crap left over after the lighter hydrocarbons have been distilled out of the crude. It's basically tar, and in order to be pumped around, and injected into the ship's engines, needs to be heated to some 100C to thin it out.
The bigger problem I would expect, is getting it to pass emissions. I would guess that it'll do great on CO2, but it'll blow NOX worse than a Diesel.
If they get their fuel/air mix right, there won't be a NOx issue as there won't be enough left over oxygen to produce NOx in significant quantities. Modern diesels produce it due to the high flame temperatures, and because by definition they run extremely lean. If they're running it like a gasoline engine, where the goal is to completely consume the oxygen in the charge air, then the NOx issues should be relatively well controlled.
The issue is that the NOx pollution from the Diesels is due to its thermal efficiency. In a properly running diesel, the flame in the cylinder is so hot that it causes the N2 from the atmosphere to momentarily disassociate, which in turn combines with the left over oxygen, producing oxides of nitrogen. By definition, diesels run extremely lean, so there's plenty of oxygen for this to happen, and 80% of the charge is nitrogen. Anyhow, the net result is that diesels tend to produce the most NOx at the most efficient point, which is right around their torque curve.
Gasoline engines, on the other hand, ideally operate at the stochiometric ratio; the oxygen in the charge air is completely consumed by the combustion. It sounds like Mazda has achieved diesel-like efficiency while maintaining the gasoline ratios, meaning that there is no left over oxygen to produce NOx. It'll be interesting to see if it works out and is reliable.
We are against the government mandating that we accept "marriages" which go against the Gospel.
Not trying to be offensive or argumentative, but I take two issues with this statement. First, the government isn't forcing you to accept the marriages, nor are they forcing you to perform them. Granting equal civil rights to others in no way diminishes your own. It doesn't denigrate your marriage, it doesn't make it any less holy. When you stand before the altar with your partner, that is between you, your partner, and God.
The second is your statement that it goes against the Gospel. It would be more correct to say that it goes against your sect's interpretation of the Gospel. I'm a straight white male Christian, and I most certainly feel different than you do. Love is Love in my books.
Your rights end where they start infringing on mine; my rights end where they start infringing on yours.
And this is the exact crux of the issue. The government recognizing same-sex marriages in no way infringes on your rights. It provides rights that were previously denied to others. I'm not going to say that you're wrong, because I don't know that, none of us do. I don't agree with you, but that's different than thinking that you're wrong.
They refuse to be teamworkers and work as long as their teammates do. They leave early, refuse to work weekends, and demand vacation time. All of those things are incompatible with a modern tech company.
I'm a male Engineer, and after my years in the industry I've come to the following conclusion: My employer buys 40 hours of my time per week. The rest is my time. We should be applauding those who stand up for themselves and refuse to work stupid hours because their employer is too cheap to hire enough people to do the job. That is something to be admired, not denigrated. Your family and your personal well being are far more important than meeting some artificial deadline.
Yes, tradition. When you look down, your eyes need to refocus to a radically different distance than basically infinity. It takes time for that to occur. It then takes time to shift back.
Moving the cluster to the middle reduces that shift, making it faster. It also puts more of the road into your peripheral vision.
Now whether it actually makes enough of a difference is debatable, but that's the theory behind it.
Actually, while it may feel weird at first, it's actually safer. Putting the cluster in the middle puts it further away from you, which means you don't need to refocus your eyes as much. Thus, it's faster to look down, and faster to return your eyes to the road. We're talking about fractions of a second here, but it is measurable in the lab.
All commercial vessels subject to GMDSS requirements (so basically anything bigger than a crew boat) are required to carry an EPIRB already. Personally, I think it's unreasonable to require someone to carry one on recreational vessels, or those engaging solely in in-harbour work (water taxis etc...) They're not cheap, and exploding the number of them would put a huge strain on the rescue system due to the number of false alerts the units can generate.
That 1000 years of jurisprudence is just a convention. No nation or people are expected to do unreasonable or heroic things.
No, but it is generally expected that people and nations would do reasonable things for the safety and wellbeing of those at sea. Completely terminating the search and rescue as the OP proposed would be unreasonable.
If I came across a bunch of drunk teenagers who were laughing at me for responding, you better believe that I would be making the appropriate reports, both through the coastguard and through the police.
I think this got taken completely the wrong way, which definitely wasn't my intent. Like I said above, the term I used is one of endearment. It's no different than referring to a member of the RCMP as a "Mountie." They work hard, train hard, and put their lives on the line for the sake of others. Nor am I saying that this justifies things or anything else. Secondly, in many nations, the Coast Guard is an independent organization, not part of the military.
Anyhow, my sister's previous boyfriend was a SAR Tech. In his job, they had to have a certain number of hours performing their job in order to maintain their skills, and maintain official reasyness. Same for the pilots, the guys in the boats, etc... If they got sent out on a call, the hours while on the call counted towards their requirements. If they didn't get called out, they would have to go out and do exercises and what not anyway. Sometimes they would get called out, the problem would get subsequently resolved before they arrived on scene (say another boater picked up the folks in the water, or someone on scene determined it was a mistake, whatever), depending on their hours requirements, and conditions, they might continue to go through the motions anyway. That was my entire point.
How you mistook that to constue justifying false calls, I don't get. It's just the whole trying to make the best out of a shitty situation. If someone makes a false report, they deserve to have the world come down on them like a ton of bricks. There is zero excuse for it.
What an asinine statement. The "coasties", as you derisively refer to them, have plenty of training opportunities, all of them more effective than a fake mayday call.
I guess I wasn't clear enough. Around here, the term "Coastie" is a term of endearment, not derision. They're out there, working hard, often putting their butts on the line when we get into trouble.
My thought process in terms of the training comment comes from the work I've done with a volunteer fire brigade at a remote site. We respond to all fire alarms equally, and thus far all but 3 in the past 50 years have been false. However, if the alarm happens to come in on a nice afternoon, and there's not much else going on, we'll use it as a training opportunity. Pull hose, enter/search the building as though it is filled with smoke, charge the hoses and train on handling them, you name it.
I've used DF equipment, and it's not as perfect as you make it sound. Sure it will give you a bearing, but there's only so much precision to it, and it won't give you distance, only direction.
Sure, but it's good enough to tell if the radio call is coming from a plausible direction. If your repeater tower is located on shore, and it's detecting the call coming from inland...
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Class A AIS (that used by SOLAS/Commercial vessels) is utterly dependent on GPS to function. Without it, the on-air interface will not work. AIS uses two VHF channels, and each channel is divided up into 2250 time slots per second. These time slots are aligned to UTC time, and without a GPS time base to keep all the transceivers on all the ships worldwide, the system simply doesn't work. In fact, all the standards related to AIS, and the type approval requirements for the transceivers expressly forbids them from transmitting if they do not have a GPS lock on their internal GPS.
Class B transcievers, those used on non-convention and recreational vessels are not tied to GPS time, but they function by listening to the time slot map, and then transmitting in empty slots if they're quiet enough. They don't work if there aren't class A transceivers in the area.
Well, technically determining longitude reliably (and easily) was actually quite hard, and only became a solved problem in the past 300 years or so. The development of the marine chronometer was one of the major events that helped make it easy to determine your longitude.
The humble chronometer was pretty much the atomic weapon of its time. The ability to reliably place themselves on the planet is what allowed the Royal Navy to rule the seas for a century or more.
On an unrelated note, if you're ever in London I strongly recommend a visit to the Admiralty Museum, and the Greenwich Observatory. They have Harrison's Chronometers on display, and they're still functional centuries later.
If the GPS is 1 degree off, you may not realize the problem until it is too late.
This would actually very difficult, if not impossible to achieve. GPS works by trilateration. The receiver computes its precise local time (atomic levels of accuracy), and uses that to calculate the distance to each of the satellites being used in the solution. Then, based on the precise time and its precise knowledge of the satellite orbits (which the satellites also transmit), it can figure out where it is.
In order for an adversary to shift the geographic position, they would have to completely replace the transmission received by the target receiver, and finely adjust the delays to the various satellites in view to cause a different solution to be computed.
Even then, the likelihood of all the receivers onboard falling prey to the deception is pretty low. A receiver on the other side of the superstructure would likely be shielded enough, a GPS compass wouldn't work right, and any satcom antennas would probably lose their lock. It'd have to be a pretty dumb crew to fall prey to it.
The article did not say, but I assume that the issue is primarily collision avoidance. This position data could be sent to AIS so that other ships know their position, speed, heading, DSC information, name for hailing purposes, etc.
AIS is dependent on GPS for timing and on-air data collision avoidance, in addition to actually encoding the ship's position. Without GPS, an AIS transponder is prohibited from transmitting. The transmission scheme has each second divided into 2250 time slots, and is strictly alligned to UTC time. Without the timing signal from the internal GPS receiver, a class-A AIS transceiver can not ensure that it will only occupy its own time slot(s).
On the other hand, GPS signals are spread spectrum, with significant FEC and error correction in them. From what I understand, most GPS jammers work by overwhelming the radio front-end, rather than by masking the original signal. If you were to replace the omni-directional antenna that is normally used for GPS with a directional one and aim it at the sky, that would go a long way to reduce the effectiveness of a jammer.
All ships use the AIS collision avoidance system. The sending ship sends a radio signal that contains information about the ship, its position (derived from GPS), and its course and speed. The receiving ship has a receiver that displays the information from nearby vessels (and its own position and course) overlaid on a chart. Without the position derived from GPS the system collapses.
Actually, without GPS, AIS will collapse, but not due to the loss of position signal. AIS is based on Self-organizing TDMA to manage on-air resources. Each second is divided up into 2250 time slots, which are precisely aligned with UTC seconds. The accuracy is such that for Class A beacons, this can only be derived from timing signals from the beacon's internal GPS receiver.
That said, AIS is only one tool in the arsenal. Ships also have dual radars, and if that goes bad, there's always the MK1 eyeball and MK0 ear.
I was out sailing this past weekend, and the visibility was utter shite. We passed within 2 miles of the Crystal Serenity, the largest cruise ship doing the Alaska run, and the only reason why we knew she was there was due to our radar, the fact that we heard her fog signals, her crew's chatter on the radio, and lastly because we had her on AIS. It's all about redundancy and alternate means.
And your GPS is faster, smaller, more accurate, and cheaper. With the modern multi-constellation receivers (GPS + Galileo + GLONASS) there's no reason to go back to LORAN. I sail, often in bad weather, limited visibility, and in isolated areas. GPS is the cat's meow.
There's no good way to "refine" plutonium once you have it. Just because you have large amounts of plutonium doesn't mean that you have the right isotope mix to build a functional nuclear weapon. It's virtually impossible to enrich Plutonium the same way that you can with Uranium. Most of what Japan has will be reactor grade Plutonium, which is far too reactive to use in a warhead; it's simply impossible to assemble the critical mass fast enough to produce anything other than a fizzle.
I wouldn't doubt, though, that Japan is "Nuclear Capable". If they had the desire, they could initiate a crash program and build a basic warhead in pretty quick order. However, it's not just Japan that could do so. Canada, and pretty much any other country with an indigenous nuclear industry and research capability could do so.
I don't think anyone is claiming they have a thermonuclear warhead. At most, they likely have a boosted fission device. Still plenty powerful, but much easier to make. Once you've got a functional implosion-type warhead, it's a pretty obvious move to add a system to inject a bit of tritium just prior to detonation. The tritium fuses due to the initial fission reaction, which in turn produces fast neutrons, which in turn causes additional fission of a U238 tamper, and the other, fissile material.
It's called "Selective Availability." But they can re-enable it at any time should some dumbasses in North Korea decide to use GPS.
Actually, they can't. The current block of satellites do not have the capability to enable SA. What they can do is turn the service off for a selected region either through nulling the antennas on the satellite, or outright shutting down the unencrypted signal in various areas.
Canada gave up its Nukes (US provided, dual-key arrangement) in 1984, and things have generally worked out pretty well. Canada has also decided not to persue its own program, despite having the nuclear capabilities and infrastructure required to do so.
Or you know, there is this ancient art known as "Sailing." Modern sailing vessels tend to be extremely efficient machines at moving from point A to point B, whether under sail or under motor. I just came back from spending 5 days on a 35,000 lb 48' sailboat. My friend and I were able to handle her by ourselves, even in gale conditions. When we were becalmed, we fired up the engine and burned about 1gph, moving at 7 knots. When the wind came back up to about 12 knots, we were able to get back up to hull speed (7kt), without much trouble.
Obviously this isn't as practical when it comes to the huge container ships and so forth, but when fuel prices spiked several years ago, there were a couple of proposals to outfit large ships with giant computer-controlled kites that would be able to provide significant propulsion to the ship.
One of the constants on the ocean is that more often than not, there's wind. Harnessing it is an art that coudl come back.
Yes, but they're still diesel engines. In theory, Diesel engines will burn pretty much anything flammable. Diesel himself originally tried to run his design on coal dust, before switching to peanut oil.
Diesel fuel as you buy it for road vehicles is basically No 2 fuel oil, which is pretty similar to heating oil and Jet-A/JP-5. There are subtle differences in the exact makeup, mostly related to lubricity (small diesels depend on the fuel to cool/lubricate the fuel pumps), and a few other specific properties.
Bunker fuel, aka No 6 aka Bunker C, is the crap left over after the lighter hydrocarbons have been distilled out of the crude. It's basically tar, and in order to be pumped around, and injected into the ship's engines, needs to be heated to some 100C to thin it out.
The bigger problem I would expect, is getting it to pass emissions. I would guess that it'll do great on CO2, but it'll blow NOX worse than a Diesel.
If they get their fuel/air mix right, there won't be a NOx issue as there won't be enough left over oxygen to produce NOx in significant quantities. Modern diesels produce it due to the high flame temperatures, and because by definition they run extremely lean. If they're running it like a gasoline engine, where the goal is to completely consume the oxygen in the charge air, then the NOx issues should be relatively well controlled.
The issue is that the NOx pollution from the Diesels is due to its thermal efficiency. In a properly running diesel, the flame in the cylinder is so hot that it causes the N2 from the atmosphere to momentarily disassociate, which in turn combines with the left over oxygen, producing oxides of nitrogen. By definition, diesels run extremely lean, so there's plenty of oxygen for this to happen, and 80% of the charge is nitrogen. Anyhow, the net result is that diesels tend to produce the most NOx at the most efficient point, which is right around their torque curve.
Gasoline engines, on the other hand, ideally operate at the stochiometric ratio; the oxygen in the charge air is completely consumed by the combustion. It sounds like Mazda has achieved diesel-like efficiency while maintaining the gasoline ratios, meaning that there is no left over oxygen to produce NOx. It'll be interesting to see if it works out and is reliable.
We are against the government mandating that we accept "marriages" which go against the Gospel.
Not trying to be offensive or argumentative, but I take two issues with this statement. First, the government isn't forcing you to accept the marriages, nor are they forcing you to perform them. Granting equal civil rights to others in no way diminishes your own. It doesn't denigrate your marriage, it doesn't make it any less holy. When you stand before the altar with your partner, that is between you, your partner, and God.
The second is your statement that it goes against the Gospel. It would be more correct to say that it goes against your sect's interpretation of the Gospel. I'm a straight white male Christian, and I most certainly feel different than you do. Love is Love in my books.
Your rights end where they start infringing on mine; my rights end where they start infringing on yours.
And this is the exact crux of the issue. The government recognizing same-sex marriages in no way infringes on your rights. It provides rights that were previously denied to others. I'm not going to say that you're wrong, because I don't know that, none of us do. I don't agree with you, but that's different than thinking that you're wrong.
They refuse to be teamworkers and work as long as their teammates do. They leave early, refuse to work weekends, and demand vacation time. All of those things are incompatible with a modern tech company.
I'm a male Engineer, and after my years in the industry I've come to the following conclusion: My employer buys 40 hours of my time per week. The rest is my time. We should be applauding those who stand up for themselves and refuse to work stupid hours because their employer is too cheap to hire enough people to do the job. That is something to be admired, not denigrated. Your family and your personal well being are far more important than meeting some artificial deadline.
On the setup I used, you'd pick your username, and your scans would be dropped into a folder in your home directory. Easy peasy.
Yes, tradition. When you look down, your eyes need to refocus to a radically different distance than basically infinity. It takes time for that to occur. It then takes time to shift back.
Moving the cluster to the middle reduces that shift, making it faster. It also puts more of the road into your peripheral vision.
Now whether it actually makes enough of a difference is debatable, but that's the theory behind it.
Actually, while it may feel weird at first, it's actually safer. Putting the cluster in the middle puts it further away from you, which means you don't need to refocus your eyes as much. Thus, it's faster to look down, and faster to return your eyes to the road. We're talking about fractions of a second here, but it is measurable in the lab.
All commercial vessels subject to GMDSS requirements (so basically anything bigger than a crew boat) are required to carry an EPIRB already. Personally, I think it's unreasonable to require someone to carry one on recreational vessels, or those engaging solely in in-harbour work (water taxis etc...) They're not cheap, and exploding the number of them would put a huge strain on the rescue system due to the number of false alerts the units can generate.
That 1000 years of jurisprudence is just a convention. No nation or people are expected to do unreasonable or heroic things.
No, but it is generally expected that people and nations would do reasonable things for the safety and wellbeing of those at sea. Completely terminating the search and rescue as the OP proposed would be unreasonable.
If I came across a bunch of drunk teenagers who were laughing at me for responding, you better believe that I would be making the appropriate reports, both through the coastguard and through the police.
I think this got taken completely the wrong way, which definitely wasn't my intent. Like I said above, the term I used is one of endearment. It's no different than referring to a member of the RCMP as a "Mountie." They work hard, train hard, and put their lives on the line for the sake of others. Nor am I saying that this justifies things or anything else. Secondly, in many nations, the Coast Guard is an independent organization, not part of the military.
Anyhow, my sister's previous boyfriend was a SAR Tech. In his job, they had to have a certain number of hours performing their job in order to maintain their skills, and maintain official reasyness. Same for the pilots, the guys in the boats, etc... If they got sent out on a call, the hours while on the call counted towards their requirements. If they didn't get called out, they would have to go out and do exercises and what not anyway. Sometimes they would get called out, the problem would get subsequently resolved before they arrived on scene (say another boater picked up the folks in the water, or someone on scene determined it was a mistake, whatever), depending on their hours requirements, and conditions, they might continue to go through the motions anyway. That was my entire point.
How you mistook that to constue justifying false calls, I don't get. It's just the whole trying to make the best out of a shitty situation. If someone makes a false report, they deserve to have the world come down on them like a ton of bricks. There is zero excuse for it.
What an asinine statement. The "coasties", as you derisively refer to them, have plenty of training opportunities, all of them more effective than a fake mayday call.
I guess I wasn't clear enough. Around here, the term "Coastie" is a term of endearment, not derision. They're out there, working hard, often putting their butts on the line when we get into trouble.
My thought process in terms of the training comment comes from the work I've done with a volunteer fire brigade at a remote site. We respond to all fire alarms equally, and thus far all but 3 in the past 50 years have been false. However, if the alarm happens to come in on a nice afternoon, and there's not much else going on, we'll use it as a training opportunity. Pull hose, enter/search the building as though it is filled with smoke, charge the hoses and train on handling them, you name it.
I've used DF equipment, and it's not as perfect as you make it sound.
Sure it will give you a bearing, but there's only so much precision to it, and it won't give you distance, only direction.
Sure, but it's good enough to tell if the radio call is coming from a plausible direction. If your repeater tower is located on shore, and it's detecting the call coming from inland...