New VHF Channels for USA?

J

joewall

New member
Only about 1 or 2 of you may remember me from many moons ago (I was one of the original brats and a C-Dog prior to that), but I have moved back to Anacortes and have a 25 Cruiser that I bought last July. So hello.

Long story short, I wound up with Lowrance's Link-9 VHF and have been having fits since it is not configured with 22A, among other frequencies. Turns out that the USCG is moving away from 22A to 1022 at some time in the future. See the attached link: https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/?pageName=mtvhf I've been dealing with Lowrance tech support trying to resolve the issue for a week and finally found ONE individual who researched and found out what the apparent issue is. Apparently, 22A is going to be phased out in the US.

From the USCG website "Note that the four digit channel number beginning with the digits "10" indicates simplex use of the ship station transmit side of what had been an international duplex channel. These new channel numbers, now recognized internationally, were previously designated in the US by the two digit channel number ending with the letter "A". That is, the international channel 1005 has been designated in the US by channel 05A, and the US Coast Guard channel 1022 has been designated in the US as channel 22A. Four digit channels beginning with "20", sometimes shown by the two-digit channel number ending with the letter "B", indicates simplex use of the coast station transmit side of what normally was an international duplex channel. The U.S. does not currently use "B" or "20NN" channels in the VHF maritime band. Some VHF transceivers are equipped with an "International - U.S." switch to avoid conflicting use of these channels. See ITU Radio Regulation Appendix 18 and ITU-R M.1084-5 Annex 4, summarized here....These new channel numbers should eventually begin to be displayed on new models of VHF marine radios."

I haven't gone down to the boat yet to validate, but I offer this as a heads up. If you buy a new VHF, it may not have 22A and this would be why. Dont beat your head against the wall like I just did.
 
My understanding is that the frequencies have not changed, so that the older radios are still functional. You just have to remember that the the channel designation has changed...Putting the channel guide by the radio on a laminated card may help with any confusion.
 
joewall":zeb6fe2r said:
Only about 1 or 2 of you may remember me from many moons ago (I was one of the original brats and a C-Dog prior to that), but I have moved back to Anacortes and have a 25 Cruiser that I bought last July. So hello.

Long story short, I wound up with Lowrance's Link-9 VHF and have been having fits since it is not configured with 22A, among other frequencies. Turns out that the USCG is moving away from 22A to 1022 at some time in the future. See the attached link: https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/?pageName=mtvhf I've been dealing with Lowrance tech support trying to resolve the issue for a week and finally found ONE individual who researched and found out what the apparent issue is. Apparently, 22A is going to be phased out in the US.

From the USCG website "Note that the four digit channel number beginning with the digits "10" indicates simplex use of the ship station transmit side of what had been an international duplex channel. These new channel numbers, now recognized internationally, were previously designated in the US by the two digit channel number ending with the letter "A". That is, the international channel 1005 has been designated in the US by channel 05A, and the US Coast Guard channel 1022 has been designated in the US as channel 22A. Four digit channels beginning with "20", sometimes shown by the two-digit channel number ending with the letter "B", indicates simplex use of the coast station transmit side of what normally was an international duplex channel. The U.S. does not currently use "B" or "20NN" channels in the VHF maritime band. Some VHF transceivers are equipped with an "International - U.S." switch to avoid conflicting use of these channels. See ITU Radio Regulation Appendix 18 and ITU-R M.1084-5 Annex 4, summarized here....These new channel numbers should eventually begin to be displayed on new models of VHF marine radios."

I haven't gone down to the boat yet to validate, but I offer this as a heads up. If you buy a new VHF, it may not have 22A and this would be why. Dont beat your head against the wall like I just did.
Click to expand...

Joe, this is interesting but what is NOT changing, and all that really matters, is the FREQUENCY. 1022 and 22A are both 157.100 MHz, so they are both the same "channel" no matter what the display on your VHF shows. Incidentally, 157.100 MHz is also the frequency for International channel 22, as shown here. It does not look like any of the frequencies are actually changing. So it would be premature for folks to worry too much about whether their VHF radio is obsolete just yet!
 
Joe, I'm one of those one or two, so welcome back! It's only been 15 years. Fred said you were back on local waters in your new 25', which must be fun for you. Keep in touch, and I hope to see you out there this season.
 
Pat said:
"....It does not look like any of the frequencies are actually changing. So it would be premature for folks to worry too much about whether their VHF radio is obsolete just yet!"
Click to expand...

Wheeuuu! I thought I was going to have to get some new radios there for a minute.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

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For those of you who do wind up buying a new VHF, here's the tale as submitted to the Power Squadron:

I recently acquired a Lowrance Link-9 VHF as a replacement for my Link-8 under warranty due to poor reception capability. Naturally, upon initial setup, I configured the radio to USA settings. When attempting to tune to 22A I discovered that the channel selector would roll from channel 20 to channel 24, skipping the channels in between. I contacted Lowrance tech support (I had been dealing with them for several weeks in an attempt to resolve the issue with my Link-8). After a week of back and forth with Lowrance, I finally found someone who was able to determine that the USCG was switching the nomenclature from 22A to 1022 (the ship and shore frequencies are to remain unchanged so old radios will not be affected). As a consequence, Lowrance is no longer producing VHF radios that display Channels 21A, 22A or 23A. At this point in time, their tech support staff has not been appraised of this change and reference to the change is not made in the User's Manual for the Link-9 other than displaying the "new" channels and omitting the "old" channels in the USA channel chart in the Appendices. This caused quite a bit of confusion when speaking with their tech support when I requested they pull the Link-8 USA channel chart and compare to the Link-9. The Link-8 chart went up to channel 88A and included all of the familiar channels that we have come to know and love. The Link-9 channel chart goes up to channel 1083 and excludes all of the old Alpha Channels. I have not researched which radio manufacturers are following suit with Lowrance in revising the channel line up on their new models or when, but I assume the change is inevitable. Two final notes might be helpful. First, when scrolling through the channels on the Link-9 the two digit channels display in a LARGE font. Once the channel numbers scroll to four digits, the final two digits remain in LARGE font with the first two appearing as a small font superscript in the upper left corner of the channel indicator field. This initially escaped my eye and furthered my confusion. Second, in order to avoid having to scroll through all of the channels to jump from 16 to 1022 when communicating with the USCG, I have programmed 1022 into "My Channels" on the Link-9 which I can access by a long press on the channel select knob and easily jump to 1022.
 
It will be interesting to see how the radio manufactures handle this. I have always purchased radios from outfits like Icom or Standard Horizon (Vertex)--often the MFD manufacturers don't really make their radios--they sub contract.
 
And what will really be interesting is what happens when the US CG requests that you go to VHF 22 so they can continue with the conversation.

22 is the shift to channel for USCG. Hummmm. now what?

:shock: :roll:

I'm still liking my ICOM and SH, even the old Ray218.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

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As has been pointed out by others, Ch 22 will still work on older radios. There will be two issues for new radio owners, though. The first is confusion if you are not primed to not switch to 22A but to 1022 instead. That's what had me banging my head against the wall. Second is the inconvenience of the distance between Ch 16 and Ch 1022 on the new radios. I've addressed that by adding 1022 to "My Channels", a feature on the Link-9. As long as all new radios have a "Favorites" type of setting, the issue is easily resolved. That's a big if...

JoeDub
 
And so now we can expect the Rapid rattle of the USCG voice to say "...switch and answer on ten twenty-two or 22, which ever you have".

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

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