Acronyms, TLAs, ETLAs & STLAs

An Acronym is a new word or pronounceable (and hence memorable) name coined from the first or first few letters or parts of a phrase. Therefor RADAR is an Acronym (because it's pronouncable) and MMSI is not (because it's not pronouncable). As mentioned last week, we use a lot of Acronyms in the RNLI, we also use a lot of TLAs (Three letter abreviations), ETLAs (Extended Three Letter Abreviations) and STLAs (Shortened Three Letter Abreviations)..........Whatever you call 'em, here are a few more courtesy of Dave:

ALB = All-weather Lifeboat
ILB = Inshore Lifeboat
COACS = Call Out and Communications System, this brings together our paging system with a few other elements like PMRs and mobiles.
DI = Divisional Inspector
DDI = Deputy Divisional Inspector
TDI = Training Divisional Inspector
DE = Divisional Engineer
DDE = Deputy Divisional Engineer
EPIRB = Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon
SART = Search and Rescue Transponder
GPS - Global Positioning System
DGPS = Differential Global Positioning System, this is a type of GPS which compares your receivers' position with a receiver at a known (fixed) point on land and hence removes a level of variable errors.

So there you have it!

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.