bndfishing wrote:
Here in the Pacific NW we have been using DSC for many years. Our rescue 21 system just went live this year. DSC has many more uses than just sending a distress signal to the Coast Guard. If you have buddies with class D DCS you can exchange MMSI numbers with each other and use it to "ping" them. If you have both in and out on your VHF and a good chart plotter you will see where are on the chart. You can also send out a generic distress signal to everyone that has their DSC working. It will then alert them of where you are and that there is a problem, it also switches everyone over to a common VHF channel, 70, so you can communicate. There is no way I would boat offshore with our a working VHF with DSC even if rescue 21 isn't active.
+1 on the DSC capabilities just for the MMSI capabilities. We haven't had to use the magic distress button - but I hailed a buddy of mine with the MMSI feature a few weeks back and it was cool how it all just worked.
It's great for coastal waters for the easy distress call (Hey admiral, go hit the orange 'oh sh*t' button).
Inland waters, probably not as broad of coverage. If Coast Guard patrols your waters, you probably have DSC support I think.