Donkey trip!!!!

[NQCairns]

Ok I assume it is legally safe for a skipper to give a realtime condition report that is noticably worse than the forecast. I guess the liberal use of the word approximate would be in order.
If I were to travel back 15 years when boating radio (27meg)was more friendly and less rigid could I now do the same thing and actually have the report respected for what it is or would it be sidelined by radio operators, given their fear of the law?
I used to give a basic water condition reports (if the conditions were unexpected ,mainly bad) and hear reports from places like around Cape Moreton a long time ago, is society too advanced these days for this to be possible.
Until reading these posts I had forgoten how nice recreational boating radio used to be. No use wasting your breath .

[smerl]

Here's a suggestion. Why don't we all post in the Going Fishing section before we go out advising where we plan to go, vessel call sign and channel monitored so that other Ausfish members that are going out can call someone that should already be out there and check conditions etc. Don't need exact locations or GPS Marks for the hotspot that you are sitting on, just the local name for the area that you are going to. If we all picked a channel to monitor i.e. VHF 73, 21 etc it would be just like having an Ausfish fishing club fishing each weekend.

Cheers,

Smerl

[NQCairns]

That is a really great idea Smerl, Ausfish management would have to adopt and promote it's adopted channel, for it to be uniform, could be very popular in highly populated regions.
It would give me a reason to have the VHF on instead of the stereo since the overregulation of recreational marine radio it may allow me to consider marine radio again as not just a talking EPBIRP and forgeten about mostly.nq

[loozitt]

Not a bad idea Smerl.

[jaybee]

good idea smerl, unfortuneatly it also gives the unscrupulous who roam the net, the where abouts of the most vehicles at the same ramp. food for thought.
cheers
Joe.

[Jeremy]

Further to Smerl's suggestion of selecting a particular frequency to monitor, how about nominating a particular call sign to call up to see if other Ausfish members are out on the water.

eg Ausfish Ausfish, this is Odyssea Odyssea, come in, over

Then if anyone from ausfish hears the call they can come back.

Thoughts? Suggestions for a call sign (or is 'Ausfish" OK)?

Jeremy

[mackmauler]

mainly ill be fishn east, any wind under 20knots is ####n lovely and if we made it through the bar its flat, 77 and 16 vhf my pick and if the fish are biting wait at least 10min to get a response

[northsboy]

LOL ROB!...That is a good idea though smerl....i think alot of ppl would like that...

[Kerry]

As usual a forecast is just that a forecast and considering the extent of coastal forecast areas (including 60nm to sea) and local anomoly areas one will always find things a little variable, hence the 40% extra and twice the height stuff.

Somedays if one starts giving conditions that go against the forecast then some will start to wonder what your doing there in the first place anyway and probably want to go and find out but really one should take into account ALL the available information and make a best case judgement.

In reality conditions can change almost in a blink and especially with night sea breezes that forget to stop until about 4.30am and then stop deafly quiet as if nothing was happening. In 10 minutes it can drop from a night long throw of 25 knots to practically nothing yet the sea will still be a complete pain in the neck yet the observation (at the time one got out of bed) and probably the forecast by this time is all rosy.

As for the "net", well very impracticable in a boat and if all a VMR had to do was answer requests for what the "net" forecasts/observations were then nobody would probably get a word in edgeways.

Liability plays a big part and it must be the person who decides to go who makes that decision. In some instances it is probably wiser to be negative about possible weather conditions than make assumptions.

Really if people want up to date real-time observations then all is possible just not sure then if many would use such a system with user charge costs.

As for giving observations that go against the forecast then for sure why not. Locally here the Weather office actually request this type of information as they give direct weather forecasts from the BOM office via VHF several times a day.

The local guys get to know the regulars and if they say it's cr.. then the forecasters will take that into account and inform the people responsible for the forecasts. Mostly these days coastal forecasts are generated in Brisbane and some of the local knowledge doesn't get taken into account in the time required to make it usefull.

Cheers, Kerry.

[subzero]

Gidday NQCairns, no any Rescue unit will take the information you pass VERY SERIOUSLY, will respect your assessment of the conditions, and pass on your assessment as a more up to date and factual CURRENT outlook than anything the Bureau will and can provide.
As Kerry says, you can even contact B.O.M yourself and they will take your reports into consideration after they ascertain that you are relatively factual with your assessments... In the old days, when Lighthouses were still maned, Oceon Liners still had Radio Opperators that arent run of their feet with jobs other than opperating the radio's, and deep sea trawlers etc were obliged to return current conditions several times throughout the day to org's like the B.O.M, they were probably more accurate than what you may get now because they would see the weather as it passed over them on the way to shore.... You think forecasting is bad here, to be honest you dont realise how good it really is... In N.Z where the country is so narrow, it can be snowing 1 minute, electrical storms the next, and sunny 10 mins later... over their they predict it will be night when it is day.... THEY ARE TRUELY HOPELESS!!!!

As for how nice recreational boating using 27meg used to be, in those days 15 years ago I am GUESSING, that the radios may not have been as prevalent or inexpensive as they are now days. Consequently instead of 10 boaties a weekend having a bit of a chuckle and a quiet natter on the radio in Morton Bay on the weekends there are probably 10,000... if it wasnt regulated it would become useless as the chanels would be tied up almost continuously... with more boats on the water also comes more need for assistance, fat lot of use a radio is if you cant get help, (Or weather reports even if they arent all that accurate) because the fisho's are having a chatter on the wrong frequencys.... No offence Mackmauler, but unless I am reading your post wrong above, you are suggesting using VHF 16 as your chat channel... NOT WISE, that is the main distress frequency for VHF... personally I dont care what you say or do on the radio's as long as It isnt on one of the frequencys I am forced to sit and listen to for anything up to 14 hours because that is what the rec boaters, fisherman, and local governmeant have asked us to do FOR THEM....

With regards to the suing thing, yes it is a concern, no I wont make a weather prediction or tell you it is safe to go boating on a gloriously fine day and I expect the winds to swing, drop, increase or whatever, yes I will pass on any info someone else has graciously offered, yes I will look out the window or across the boat and tell you what I currently see...
the difference is between an individual such as yourselves, and an organisation such as ours, people feel that we are a better target in the court's as they think they might make a killing... hence I will very rarely, extremely reluctantly, offer an opinion while I am on roster or in my uniform.... thats the way it is....

[mackmauler]

subzero, thats what i monitor, im rarely in the mood for a chat on any channel, got better things to do

[NQCairns]

Thanks subzero for the info, I will keep in mind now putting in a report .
From just my weak recollection the price of the radios then and now would be equiv also I would hazard to guess that were were more radios per boat back then but less boats overall (14foot +).
Virtually all boats that would travel some distance had one, today we have many more smaller sized craft doing those same distances and many seem to not have a radio?
9 out of 10 people try to do the right thing most the time I have trouble believing a rigid set of regulations would improve this, and still promote safe boating. I heard somewhere that only a fraction of the recreational people using vhf are licenced??
I recon the licence regulation will literally mean the death of people over time. No way i can justify that comment except from a human nature standpoint, why work against it for just a minor increase in order.nq