96029 Equipment Failure GMDSS

Is GMDSS a Failure?

Report No. 96029

I have now completed six months on my first full GMDSS ship and I can honestlysay that in my opinion DSC is a complete failure and a total waste of time,money and effort. I have lost track of the number of false alerts and errormessages received but they certainly number over three hundred in the pastsix months. The few that did appear to be genuine were so far away thatI did not bother logging them. The Distress Relay by automated, computerised(i.e. no human being) DSC Coast Stations, was obviously a good idea at thetime but does every ship in the world need to know about every distress?Several examples of apparently genuine but undesignated distress messageswere picked up and relayed by different DSC Coast Stations around the FarEast, Australia and South Africa. Geographically, we were an ocean awayfrom these events and propagation must have been very good at the time.
The disturbing thing is that in the space of 36 minutes, my watchkeepingofficer has been distracted no less than 21 times in order to cancel theDSC Distress Alarm, read the message and then resume his watch. This occurredwhilst we were in the Red Sea with lots of traffic around. We are fortunateon this vessel that the radio station forms part of the wheelhouse, beinga small curtained off section at the after end, so that the watchkeepingofficer does not actually have to leave the bridge to get to the GMDSS gear.I switch off the MF/HF DSC at the "end of passage" and only switchit on again at "full away". It had previously gone off severaltimes when we were under pilotage with tugs making fast and I have no plansto make maritime history by being the first DSC induced or assisted accidentstatistic.

The Operations Manual for this particular DSC is almost totally useless.It was obviously written in a great hurry by the technicians in order tojump on the GMDSS bandwagon and, if this was not supposed to be a seriouspiece of life saving equipment, the manual would be a rather tedious joke.I have written my own short and simple Operations Manual for the MF/HF DSC(and one each for the matching Sat A and Sat C VHF DSC). This task tookme the best part of two weeks with partial help from the manufacturer'smanual. There were serious mistakes and omissions in the operating and keystroke procedures, and even in the distress message format. When the timecomes, I will make sure that the manuals are thrust under the noses of theISM auditors to see what they make of them.

I would prefer the money which has been spent on GMDSS be used on a back-upSat C terminal located somewhere away from the bridge or, better still,a potable briefcase sized Sat M terminal which could be taken away in asurvival craft.