Maritime radio, HX210 and Dual Watch bug?

Marine Radios
1

Hey guys, I need your help on this one.

Me and my team are a water rescue and assistance group that operates out of our marina, but we are not affiliated with the Canadian Coast Gard (CCG), we operate with the city. We are equipped with HX210 standard horizon radios, and they have worked really well, until recently.

All of our radios are kept on Dual watch, our main channel is channel 71, and we dual watch channel 16 for emergency traffic and navigational warnings. However, I recently discovered what might be a bug, though Im not sure if its a feature or not. My and my colleague were talking on 71, but when he responded, my radio flipped to channel 16 and it was him talking. I advised him of the situation, still on 71, and he responded (on 71) that he didnt touch anything except his ptt. When I responded, my radio flipped to 16 and my collegue also heard my communication on channel 16, altrought I only touched my ptt and nothing else. I also made sure before transmitting that my radio was on channel 71, and nobody was talking on 16, wich was the case. Soon as I hit the ptt, it switched to 16.

I then grabbed a few radios and made some tests, transmiting on channel 71 with 2 radios. After 2 or 3 communication, one radio switched to 16. The other radio (wiched I turned off Dual watch), did not recive the message on 71, but the other radio on 16 (no DW) did. That radio (on 16) did no receive any communications prior to me talking. Plus, this was a rainy day with almost no boats on the water, channel 16 was very quiet.

Because these are handheld radios, I doubt the CCG ever heard anything, they also never responded and never contacted our marina to tell us to switch channels.

I find this very weird and a pretty big problem to the safety of all on the water using channel 16… anybody have an explanation or a way to fix this (besides turning off DW).

Thanks in advance !

2

I’m not sure I followed this correctly. You were transmitting on 71 and suddenly you were transmitting on 16, but he heard you on 71? I wonder if you have a slightly intermittent PTT? It would only need to bounce once during the brief dual watch period to lock onto 16. What I mean is that any PTT press on the channel it’s currently receiving on, pauses the DW and it will transmit there. As I understand that radio, if it is doing DW it is a receive function. If it detects a 16 call you hear it and press the ptt before the scan starts again goes out on 16. If your are talking DW is paused, so it shouldn’t be possible to suddenly tx somewhere else. Have I misunderstood what is happening?

1 Like
3

Kinda yes, It didnt switch when I was talking but it did when my interlocutor responded, and it was on channel 16, a radio with no DW heard it on 16, while the other on 71 did not. I was just as confused as you are with this situation, but your explanations make some sens. Do you think you have a way a fixing this ? Perhaps waiting a second before responding to let to radio check on 16 before transmitting on 71 ?

4

I tried it with some other dual watch radios, and if you hit the PTT when it flicks to 16 then it transmits on 16. I had to time it just right otherwise it just transmitted on the main channel in the display. Maybe these just linger a little long rather than a quick flash to the other channel.

5

Yeah… did some testing today and that was the issue. I also found that channel 16 could be lighting up but were not transmitting on channel 16… my collegue who didnt have DW turned on appeared has being on channel 16 for me sooo… anyways thanks for the help !!