Friday 8 February 2008

TLAs

Being as it's the first day of the rest of Martin's life I thought I'd post another nostalgic picture for him today.

I was asked earlier on this week what the 'Three Letter Abreviation' DLA meant. It got me thinking that perhaps it was time that I did a post about the various TLAs and Acronyms which we use. So, to whet your appetite here are a few:

LOM = Lifeboats Operations Manager (known to all as GOD), in our case Neil Hardy, the man who is the ultimate authority for the operations side of station life.

DLA = Deputy Launching Authority, we have 4, they deputise for the LOM and take it in turns, week and week about to be the person who takes the Coastguards' call and gives authority for the crew to be paged.

DSC = Digital Selective Calling, a clever addition to the VHF radio system which allows the caller to 'dial' the MMSI number for the vessel he is hailing and get patched straight through.

MMSI = Maritime Mobile Service Identity, a number unique to each vessel which is registered which can be used to call a vessel direct using DSC VHF.

RADAR = Radio Detection and Ranging, equipment we use in fog and at night to spot targets and land which might be best avoided. Can also be used for navigational purposes.

VHF = Very High Frequency, radio equipment used for line of sight communications.

HF = High Frequency, radio equipment used for long range communications.

PMR = Private Mobile Radio, used by us for communicating with the boathouse and can also be patched into the mobile phone network (to let the family know when you'll be home!)


I can't think of any more of the top of my head but if anyone else can please get in touch and I'll add them.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'd have said that MMSI is an ETLA (Extended Three Letter Acronym). What about ALB, ILB, COACS, DI, DDI, TDI, DE, DDE, DGM, DMM, DMRM, EPIRB, SART, GPS, DGPS . . shall I continue :o)

Swanage Coastguard said...

I thought the Coastguard was bad!....some of ours include, IRT, BURT, MCA, CRE, CRC, MRU, MRCC, SO ,DSO, CRO.....maybe something for our blog one day!