Why is the CG Unintelligible When They are on the Radio?

[Sand crab]

I remember hearing a Pan Pan or Mayday here in the Sound a few years back. The CG gave the coordinates instead of simply saying it was on the east side of Friday Island or perhaps should have added this. The coordinates were so fast we couldn't get it all. My friend (his boat) only had a hand held GPS which was not on. It was a small motorboat that capsized and everybody was OK including the dog btw and we were nowhere near Friday Island.

Rant over.

[jtsailjt]

Originally Posted by CyKlop

Something to keep in mind is "what are you used to". As an instrument-rated pilot, I'm used to taking down my clearance at a clip that a non-pilot would find very intimidating, if they could even get all of it. As someone else said, I am familiar with the cadence and even the order of things so I know what I _really_ need to listen to, and what I _should_ listen to right this moment.



The same happens on the water. If you gather together lack of practice (that's not a negative on any of you - practice is simply exposure to them) with spotty reception plus other distractions and noises, it can be difficult. Add in unfamiliar terms such as "Pickle Island" and life gets crazy difficult. On the other hand, a local boater who is quite familiar with their local radio operators, and things are just fine.



It probably also helps that I did a lot of my growing up in NY where people talk rapidly anyway.

But the difference is, while the clearance might sound like gobblygook to a non pilot, your clearance is in a certain order that you are expecting and since you chose the route and filed the flight plan, and are already familiar with local SIDS you might be assigned, you usually know almost everything (except the squawk and departure frequency) he’ll say before the controller even says it. Also, your cockpit is usually quiet and you’re wearing a headset when you’re copying your clearance and the controller doesn’t read it until you’ve told him you are ready to copy, but a boat is often noisy and transmissions begin at random times when you are distracted by being actively engaged in sailing your boat or conversing with your crew. Another difference is that your clearance usually comes from a radio transmitter less than one mile away and within line of sight to you. Many of the things said on marine radios are nowhere near as ‘canned’ as in aviation. As in most things, practice and familiarity makes us better at it, but no matter how good a listener you’ve trained yourself to become, if the person transmitting mumbles or reads coordinates fast and only once while you’re also being distracted by events aboard your boat, you’re unlikely to get it right.

[DaveKurtz]

I don’t entirely disagree with you, although after listening to USCG broadcasts for a year or so I can now understand them. However, on a couple of occasions I have requested that they repeat coordinates for a Pan Pan... slowly. There is no way anyone is going to recall the degrees and minutes of a fix after hearing the USCG rattle them off.

[exMaggieDrum]

Originally Posted by carstenb

WE now sailing in the US and we frequently hear the USCG on the radio. Despite being a European, I am a native english (american) speaker. The USCG broadcasts are unintelligible.

1 - They are speedtalkers like I've never heard before - they literally are talking so fast that even I can't follow what they say.

2- They almost all hold the mike much too close to their mouths and that also makes the speech impossible to decipher.

Don't they get radio training? When I went to radio school I was taught (and tested in) speaking in a normal voice and speed, enunciating clearly and making sure I finished enunciating each word correctly. I was also taught to hold the mike away from my mouth so my breath didn't sound in the mike and finally I was taught to speak slowly.

I was also taught that vitally important information, such as position, should be repeated to ensure that it was correctly understood - the USCG never does this


Yesterday, sailing in the San Juans, the USCG put out a PAN PAN. The Guardsman was speedtalking so fast that there was no way to understand and be able to jot down the position he was giving where there were persons in the water. We were in the vicinity, but because he was so unclear, we couldn't determine if we were close enough to help.


Does anyone know why they are incompetent to use a radio? It must be a lack of training - but why no training?

By the way - we had this experience with virtually every CG radio signal we heard and we've heard lots

I've experienced this many, many times listening to USCG broadcasts, usually when they are made to a wide area. Sometime, and I mean sometimes only, they do speak slow enough for you to understand at least some of what they are saying. Almost never do they speak the lat/long coordinates slowly enough to even get a clue to where they mean.



It's great that some of you have never experienced this but it clearly has not been some sailors' experiences.

[jtsailjt]

I left my boat yesterday to join a friend on his motorboat as we inspected several moorings that we share, covering about 50 miles in the process. Because of this discussion I was listening especially carefully to the Pan Pans we heard. They started out by saying “this is the United States Coast Guard Northern New England Group” but even though I’ve heard it hundreds of times he said it so fast that I had to ask myself if that’s really what I had just heard. Then he proceeded to state that there had been a report of a person yelling “help” in the vicinity of Harriman Point. I’m from this area and had sailed by it dozens of times but no idea where Harriman Point was but my friend happens to live about 2 miles away as the crow flies so he knew. “Harriman Point on the west side of Blue Hill Bay” would have been more useful, or even “Harriman Point at lat/long.” Harriman Point is not a well known or prominent landmark in this area but rather is one of literally thousands of similar features of this coastline within the area where this broadcast could be heard. Of the many hundreds of boaters who heard this broadcast, I’m sure that very few had any idea where it was. I got the feeling that the USCG radio operator had said the standard preamble so many times that he was bored with it and just wanted to get through it quickly so he said it so fast it was barely intelligible. Then he just repeated what whoever had reported hearing the “help” had said to him. It was technically correct but was unlikely to alert nearby boaters who might have helped out because of an incomplete description of which Harriman Point in what general and well known area this Harriman Point could be found. These radio operators need to start by actually identifying themselves in such a way that someone who had never even heard of them or had never used a radio would understand who was speaking. Then, rather than just repeating the report they receive, they should first ask themselves if the info provided could be improved upon to let nearby folks (in western Blue Hill Bay) be alerted so they might be of use to the person asking for “help” and let everyone else who is not nearby (hundreds of boaters from at least Rockland to Machias) know that they need not waste time trying to figure out where Harriman Point is. After a few dozen wild goose chases looking all over your charts for the “Harriman Points” of the Maine Coast without any clue to help narrow it down, people tend to just tune out these broadcasts and that defeats the whole purpose of having them. If it’s worthy of a Pan Pan, it’s worth speaking clearly and also clearly identifying the location so anybody who hears the broadcast can easily determine whether or not they are in a position to provide assistance or are too far away so can just continue with whatever they were doing before.

[smilan]

Originally Posted by BlackHeron

Maybe you can understand what they are saying perfectly well in government-spec high-end noise cancelling aircraft radio earphones in your helicopter way up there in the air with a good clean signal.

But down on the water here with the engine running in the background it is all mumble-mumble-mumble static whomp whomp whomp static crunch squawk.

Ground to ground radio transmissions are always a bit iffy at longer ranges on VHF. That is why they make the CG radio operators say some important things THREE TIMES. So if there is interference or just a long distance with a weak signal at least one of those times it can be copied clearly

Instead they obviously HATE having to say it three times so they say it once really fast then it is Mumble Mumble Mumble to get it over with the second and third times as quickly as possible.

Mostly it is like a the peanuts cartoon when the adults are talking to the kids. All unintelligible trombone sounds

Over the radio you need to talk SLOWLY and ENUNCIATE. Those kids just dont get it. Might as well not monitor ch. 16 because the GC transmissions are mostly worthless noise.

BlackHeron's description of the radio conversation nails it. I'm still laughing - but wondering if the static and distortion are partly due to the technology? Cell phone calls and Zoom meetings from halfway around the world are clear as a bell.

[torrmundi]

I asked a fairly recently retired coastie friend about this and here's his comments:

Sadly, the professional radio operators are long gone. When I first signed up my job title was Telecommunication Specialist and my primary duty was to talk on the radio. We spoke at the rate that we could write and kept the mic 1 inch from our mouths. Now radio traffic is passed by Operation Specialists as the CG doesn’t have Telecommunication Specialists anymore. And to compound matters, they don’t use an actual radio to talk, Instead they use a headset broadcasting with rescue 21 which is trash in my opinion.

I could go on and on about the quality of service we offered back in the old guard but that wouldn’t help much.

[Auspicious]

Originally Posted by torrmundi

Instead they use a headset broadcasting with rescue 21 which is trash in my opinion.

Could you ask your friend to elaborate? My experience with Rescue 21 on the user end has been good. Better range, more consistency, fewer drop-outs and repeats. Much better DF. Less background noise from the CG radio room.

What doesn't he like? VOIP? Computer control? Something I/we miss on the outside?

[torrmundi]

Originally Posted by Auspicious

Could you ask your friend to elaborate? My experience with Rescue 21 on the user end has been good. Better range, more consistency, fewer drop-outs and repeats. Much better DF. Less background noise from the CG radio room.

What doesn't he like? VOIP? Computer control? Something I/we miss on the outside?

He thinks:"I’m going to sound like a dinosaur, but I think Rescue 21 as a program is fine. But when we started using it was shortly after the TCs were replaced with non-traditional Radiomen. For the first 10 years or so, a lot of the Operation Specialists (OS) were legacy TCs so the professionalism on air was retained. But once the OS was fully staffed with folks that were not TCs, the rating lost its radio proficiency. So back to Rescue 21, I can’t really blame the program but it always reminded me of a magic tool that supposedly did all the work for the user. Which in the end creates a less informed and imaginative user."

Certainly enunciation, delivery speed, accent, and clarity should be trained. It doesn't sound like it is, does it? The only thing that is clearly being pushed is fast, faster, fastest delivery of announcements which devalues the message - if were valuable, wouldn't they make every effort to get the communication across to us?

[Auspicious]

Originally Posted by torrmundi

He thinks:"I’m going to sound like a dinosaur, but I think Rescue 21 as a program is fine. But when we started using it was shortly after the TCs were replaced with non-traditional Radiomen.

First, please thank your friend for being so responsive and thanks to you for passing along his thoughts so promptly.

My take is that there is nothing technological wrong with Rescue 21 (which is my perception). What he takes issue with is that rolling professional communicators into a broader job category (OS) reduced capability. In that respect I fully agree with him. I would much rather have seen the role of radiomen to have been expanded to include local knowledge (which is a big deal in Rescue 21 Sector-based AORs) and more dispatch responsibility.

The US Navy has a similar problem (<- opinion) with surface warfare officers (SWOs) for whom promotion is more dependent on things other than shiphandling and navigation.

[thomm225]

Coast Guard was conducting a rescue on Saturday morning (50' Catamaran taking on water) as I was wrestling with my boat and rudder keeping it DDW so the waves wouldn't break over the side and I could hear and understand them perfectly.

They did the standard questioning: position, souls onboard, length and color of vessel, name and type of vessel, cell phone number, problem, and so on.

It was very clear and calm from the female Coast Guardsman.

I couldn't hear the vessel's transmission so maybe they were quite a ways offshore.

Another boat sank later in the day near the Bridge.

https://www.pilotonline.com/news/art...51c6c1e03.html

[redneckrob]

Originally Posted by torrmundi

He thinks:"I’m going to sound like a dinosaur, but I think Rescue 21 as a program is fine. But when we started using it was shortly after the TCs were replaced with non-traditional Radiomen. For the first 10 years or so, a lot of the Operation Specialists (OS) were legacy TCs so the professionalism on air was retained. But once the OS was fully staffed with folks that were not TCs, the rating lost its radio proficiency. So back to Rescue 21, I can’t really blame the program but it always reminded me of a magic tool that supposedly did all the work for the user. Which in the end creates a less informed and imaginative user."

Certainly enunciation, delivery speed, accent, and clarity should be trained. It doesn't sound like it is, does it? The only thing that is clearly being pushed is fast, faster, fastest delivery of announcements which devalues the message - if were valuable, wouldn't they make every effort to get the communication across to us?

It was definitely the rate consolidation, not Rescue 21. Most folks don't realize that we don't have radiomen anymore and the OS rate is a consolidation of what was once several distinct different rates plus a bunch of technology related work that didn't exist 20 years ago.

Rescue 21 was a massive improvement on CG comms capability. Not only the part boaters experience, like fewer dead spots and increased range, but more importantly parts you probably aren't aware of like the ability to do accurate and quick triangulation of a Mayday call and know where it's coming from down to a couple square miles. Before Rescue 21 if we didn't get your position or some other correlation it was generally several hundred or in worse case several thousand square miles of ocean you could be in. That also goes a long way to prevent the tens of thousands of hours we wasted every year on hoax Maydays, at one duty station they made up at least 1/3 of the SAR cases I flew on. Now if we can determine they're over land we don't have to launch at all, and if they're over water we can fly directly there and determine no-one is in distress where as before we'd always have to go fly 4 hours of searches in essentially a random chunk of the few hundred square miles for the jackwagon who made one "help, I'm sinking" call on 16 as his idea of a funny drunk joke.

There's always someone who has selective memory and maybe a hard time with technology who thinks everything about the "good old days" was better, but the cobbled together, ancient crap comms system we had before Rescue 21 was certainly in no better than what we have now from a capability perspective.

[carstenb]

We're sailng in the San Juans at the moment have have had the opportunity to hear 4-5 Pan-Pan calls from the US Coast Guard.

Frankly none of them could be understood. Gibberish all of them. Yesterday we then heard the Canadian Coast Guard make Pan-Pan.

Loud clear - spoken at a normal rate of speed, microphone apparently held the correct distance from the mouth, he repeated the important parts of the message Lat. and Long.

No trouble understanding him and even my wife commented she understood him perfectly.

We sailed over most of the world and have heard Pan-Pans and Securitie from many Coast Guards. The European ones can all be easily undestood (althought eh french have a heavy accent). It seems that only the American CG's have this problem across the board.

[JebLostInSpace]

I'm jumping in here without having read the whole thread, so sorry if this has been covered, but:

Many many of the CG transmissions I've heard up and down the US East Coast from Georgia to Mass have followed a weird and infuriating pattern in terms of clarity. Particularly PAN-PAN's seem to always go as follows:

"This is United States Coast Guard Sector (Southeast New England or whatever)" repeated 3 times. pretty quick, but clear enough, especially because I hear a dozen or so of these every day, and quickly understand this part of the transmission.

"At time (13:30 GMT, 10:30 Local or whatever) Coast Guard received a report of possible persons in the water (or whatever situation)..." said only once, but slowly and audibly.

"...At position SQUAK INAUDIBLE HYPER SPEED MUMBLE CRAP" again said only once.

"All mariners are requested to keep a sharp lookout, assist if possible, and report all sightings to US Coast Guard Sector (Southeast New England or whatever)" said once but perfectly audible.

Why oh why is the entire transmission audible and able to be understood, if spoken a little quickly at times, except the critical information of where the distressed vessel is?!?!? I have no clue if I'm close enough to be useful, because I can't understand the one 2-second piece of the transmission. And it's always the location that's garbled. What's up with that?

[SV__Grace]

You did a great job of describing my exact experience on the West Coast as well! (CA, OR, WA)

Originally Posted by JebLostInSpace

I'm jumping in here without having read the whole thread, so sorry if this has been covered, but:

Many many of the CG transmissions I've heard up and down the US East Coast from Georgia to Mass have followed a weird and infuriating pattern in terms of clarity. Particularly PAN-PAN's seem to always go as follows:

"This is United States Coast Guard Sector (Southeast New England or whatever)" repeated 3 times. pretty quick, but clear enough, especially because I hear a dozen or so of these every day, and quickly understand this part of the transmission.

"At time (13:30 GMT, 10:30 Local or whatever) Coast Guard received a report of possible persons in the water (or whatever situation)..." said only once, but slowly and audibly.

"...At position SQUAK INAUDIBLE HYPER SPEED MUMBLE CRAP" again said only once.

"All mariners are requested to keep a sharp lookout, assist if possible, and report all sightings to US Coast Guard Sector (Southeast New England or whatever)" said once but perfectly audible.

Why oh why is the entire transmission audible and able to be understood, if spoken a little quickly at times, except the critical information of where the distressed vessel is?!?!? I have no clue if I'm close enough to be useful, because I can't understand the one 2-second piece of the transmission. And it's always the location that's garbled. What's up with that?