VHF Requirements Changing

[The Pipe]

 

I trust that is not Belgian beer drunk on your boat in Belgium! If it is and your boat is over 7m then you DO require VHF. If you are drinking your beer on the Seine then you must also have one, though France is not particularly bothered about having VHF on small craft elsewhere. And of course if your boat were over 20m you'd have to have 2 sets whichever country you were in, and they'd have to be ATIS enabled.

 

The small non-commercial canals of France are not disimilar to those in the UK in many respects, and carlt is right - a simple licence would suffice for such waterways, if indeed people wanted/needed VHF at all.

 

My own certificate is a simple basic VHF-only one gained many years ago and valid for life. I use VHF regularly for contact with navigation personel and other skippers, but I'm not involved in anything fancy with it.

 

Tam

 

Tam

Actually drinking La Chouffe in the UK at the moment, Tam. My VHF licence is the usual simple one as well. So as the boat is 11.3m long I need a VHF radio in Belgium does this then have to be RAINWAT or can it just be a simple hand held set. Keeping in mind that both the Belgium and German waterway authorities seem to be both the new home of the Stasi best not to fall foul of them.

[Tam & Di]

Actually drinking La Chouffe in the UK at the moment, Tam. My VHF licence is the usual simple one as well. So as the boat is 11.3m long I need a VHF radio in Belgium does this then have to be RAINWAT or can it just be a simple hand held set. Keeping in mind that both the Belgium and German waterway authorities seem to be both the new home of the Stasi best not to fall foul of them.

 

Belgium brought in a requirement a couple of years ago that all craft over 7m (as I recall) should have two fixed sets. This obviously led to a bit of an outcry and they backed off progressively to the postion that now a vessel <20m need only have one set and it can be a hand-held. It must be ATIS enabled though. For ATIS, if you've not got one you will need to get an ENI number from the country of registration (i.e. Netherlands in your case).

 

Tam

[The Pipe]

 

Belgium brought in a requirement a couple of years ago that all craft over 7m (as I recall) should have two fixed sets. This obviously led to a bit of an outcry and they backed off progressively to the postion that now a vessel <20m need only have one set and it can be a hand-held. It must be ATIS enabled though. For ATIS, if you've not got one you will need to get an ENI number from the country of registration (i.e. Netherlands in your case).

 

Tam

Thanks Tam, at this rate I shall be running out of beer. They seem to like to make things difficult. I shall now have to put my Dutch contacts on to finding out how to get a Dutch ENI number.

[geoffwales]

PASSED today, cheers Seavoice

[The Pipe]

PASSED today, cheers Seavoice

He is quite good.

[geoffwales]

Very informative

[roggie]

I passed last weekend, Timsea in Docklands London. I think all that currently teach the vhf course are wondering how to fill the extra mandatory course, longer lunchtime perhaps. I didn't realise that my eBay purchased radio would most likely be always registered to another vessel and I doubt I'll bother with the associated costs of changing it. Interesting course though.

[geoffwales]

Only problem is, that the dsc will be registered to another person or vessel and not you, so in case of emergency the wrong boat id will be given.

 

I am just going to continue with a normal non dsc set

[Jigsawged]

You are both right of course. I didn't think at the time that my training would have cost somebody something, and the need to train amateurs in radio procedure is very important. My apologies for being rather prematurely flippant.

Greenie for that Dai