The rules for using the Humber estuary require you to have a VHF radio on the vessel unless it is impractical to power anything electrical that is larger than than a torch. Having a radio makes a lot of sense given the size of some of the ships that use the Docks at Hull, how busy the traffic separation scheme around the entrance can be and the numbers of freight carrying ships & barges that once used the rivers that join into the Humber. In the tidal areas there is also the potential for needing to make typical east coast sailing emergency calls such as “I am going backwards and wont make it back in time to get back into the haven.” or “The water has gone all thick and brown so I will stay here until the tide comes back.”
This is my second try at getting a ship’s radio license, the first was during the first Covid lockdown in the UK and came to nothing except a couple of email exchanges with someone who claimed to have fixed the reason why I couldnt apply using the online form. It didnt seem to make any difference and, at the time there were a lot of other things to do, so I didnt bother contacting them again until 2022.
As well as an almost antique VHF radio, Rathenice did originally have a radio license that came with her but had expired in July 1997. Before I replace that radio with a more modern version I really should get a license to have one fitted. I dont think there is anything stopping me fitting and testing it in receive mode but a radio which you are not allowed to transmit on is not much help so a license is needed before launching time.
One of the details of your ship that the Spectrum Licensing folks at Offcomm ask for on the license application is any previous call sign that was allocated to your ship. Well I provided them with the call sign, name etc and they dont have a record of the call sign at all. Their response included the instruction to query the installation as it might give me the MMSI number which they could trace. Well no – It’s a very simple transistorised analogue radio which was something over 20 years old when the license expired and there is very clearly no MMSI number quoted on the document so there was none assigned.
The last email tried to educate me about the format of most call signs which are a number then three letters and another number (you notice it didnt say all, presumably because there are other ancient radio users out there who’s license precedes the latest format and hasnt had a new style call sign imposed.). Probably no surprise that they cannot trace 2JHG as I expect that, if it was ever recorded other than on paper, the license expired before their current computer system was operating. Also probably not surprising that the “Help desk” guy I am dealing with wouldn’t necessarily even think that the last digit was very likely added to new licenses when the world ran out of number & 3 letter call-signs to assign. I have told them when the license expired but I don’t think that bit has quite sunk in yet.
I have subsequently sent them a photo of the expired license again as their email technology seems to have lost / rejected it from the original email. Obviously I have blanked out the details of the previous owner here but even those so far haven’t helped them identify that the license existed.
Update 28/1/2022-Finally some acknowledgement via email that I am not making up the whole “call-sign and no MMSI number” business and that this was a valid license that existed before Offcom was created (ie it must have already expired so was not transferred onto the new organisation’s records). However apparently the format of call-signs was changed by the International Telecommunications Union so I need to apply for a new one rather than get the old one back. I have filled in the form to apply from scratch and saved it because the website now wont accept the application without my number from the Register of Small Ships.
To get on the Register of Small Ships you don’t need much documentation but a bill of sale is apparently essential. There might be two problems with that – To start with Rathenice was most recently registered under the name of her second owner but the registration seems not to have been formally transferred to the individual whom I bought her from. I just have a story that the seller used to sail with the owner and was intending to do her up but lost interest in sailing when that friend died. – Due to the time gap I dont know whether or not that was the second registered owner or there have been others in between. I also don’t know if the gap in registered ownership will be a problem for me obtaining a registration. The second possible problem is that I only have a 5 year old land line number for the guy I bought the boat off. If that works, and he has survived the Coronavirus pandemic then I might be able to get him to retrospectively sign a bill of sale for me. The other way round the problems might be to ask the registration folks if they can accept that I bought the boat and was given all the old registration papers etc. Common sense suggests this should go some way towards demonstrating that it was accepted as a valid sale but this is a legal registration question so it may not be sufficient.
1/2/2022 There’s an email on it’s way to the registration scheme explaining the predicament and asking how I should proceed. Later today I will also try the number I still have and see whether or not that will solve the problem. An automatic response to my email says they are experiencing high numbers of contacts at the moment so they will attempt to respond within 10 days. So it seems that covid is causing lots of people to register new ships ?
Actually I got a real response with helpful information before I could make the phonecall. Given that I am applying for the small ships register they only really need proof of address to demonstrate eligibility for UK registration, ideally that would be the ebay receipt but as I said in my reply, my address then
is not the same as now so that wouldn’t really prove the address. I learned from filling in the application form that the ON on the board to the side of the galley is the “Official Number” of the boat that it was given at construction or original measurement. Makes sense as the other bit of the same board quotes the tonnage calculated when she was measured. I hadn’t noticed before but the ON appears on the registration document and this was also used as the reference today when I paid my registration fee. At least something still ties together the history and present situation of the boat and I dont have to get a full survey done.
I have filled in the application form but made it obvious that Rathenice may be already on the register so I cannot formally identify whether I am a new registration, re-registration or a change of ownership. I also put “No longer valid” in the space for radio call sign as I don’t want to waste their time trying to use that to trace anything (unless of course the register originally had a record of the original call sign). The plan is to email the completed form, a scanned version of the original registration document so they can decide which category I come under and a copy of my bank statement including the registration payment as proof of address.
3/2/2022 I have everything except for the bank statement scanned and the PDF files ready to email. So I just have to wait until the bank creates the last document and I can down load it.
11/2/2022 My bank let me have my latest statement so the registration application has gone in and I have the receipt email which says they will aim to contact me within 10 days.
28/2/2022 Still waiting patiently – They are either overwhelmed by new applications, confused and checking previous registrations or all “not working” from home and therefore taking a long time over the registration application.
8/3/2022 Stopped waiting patiently and sent the Small Ships Register a query as to where they are with my application. I didnt even get a thank you email from the web contact page. Looks as if the “not working” from home conclusion might have been the right one
11/3/2022 (Friday) Today I have also stopped waiting impatiently. They have had a month so I am now working on the basis of purchasing the radio and installing it even though I dont possess a ship radio license quite yet. There is nothing illegal about receiving marine band VHF so I can at least check that part of the system and confirm whether the existing antenna is working or I need to install the new one. The delivery time is reckoned to be 1 to 3 days so I should have the parcel delivered by about Wednesday next week.
12/3/22 Someone is in a hurry! – I am not complaining of course. The order was acknowledged, picked and delivery labels printed a couple of minutes before 6:00 this morning. Maybe it will arrive on Monday if the courier is counting Saturday & Sunday as part of the delivery target.
15/3/22 After the now traditional half dozen emails about delivery options the new radio and precautionary antenna replacement arrived today. So maybe tomorrow I can go from work to the boat and make a start on swapping the antennas on the mast.
Actually ended up taking until the evening of the 18th before the radio and antenna got to the boat. As usual the rest of the family are creating tasks that stop me making progress with my jobs – In this case delivering 6 bags of books to someone in Nottingham. Not too far but just enough to take up the whole of an evening after work. Even on the 18th I didnt get much time there and was mainly working on the bilge drier system because I have decided to give up on the level sensors and convert to float switches (more of that eventually in another post ).
19/3/22 Similarly nothing boat related is getting done because we are now re- (or is that Dis-) organising the spare bedrooms so we can host two sisters from Ukraine and their children. There seems to be a national shortage of bunk beds costing under £500 each with almost every potential second hand and new source being sold out (or is that Brexit blocked?) and our house is gradually filling with donated bedding, toiletries, clothes, toys, bikes and shoes. A lot of the donated stuff seems to be new or very nearly so and there doesnt seem to be any reluctance to help where possible.
22/3/22 Still waiting for the government paper pushers to get something done towards adding the boat to the Small Ships register. Not even got as much as a response to my emailed progress query. I shall be a little more patient and email them again when it is one and a half months of procrastinating on their part. Maybe they have been diverted to hunting down and arresting Russian oligarch’s boats or processing the Ukrainian refugee’s visa applications (I hope that is easier than the potential refugees’ task of completing the forms in a foreign language. Thank god for Google translate and the many other similar Apps.).
Update 25/3/22 Emailed the small ships register again to effectively say – “I applied about 6 weeks ago and have heard nothing but an automated reply promising to try to respond within 10 days. Have you got the application or do I need to re-apply?” This time I included non email routes of communication so that might work if their system lost the attachments. Even the automated platitude server seems to be on holiday as I didnt even get an estimate of how slowly they will respond. Maybe I will take up the offer on the end of their acknowledgement email which invited me to provide feedback on their service.
Update 11/4/22 Another email to them this evening complaining that I have heard nothing from them for 2 months and now cannot even log in because they have apparently forgotten my password and are suggesting that I should have a confirmation link on the end of my welcome email – Well that has to be rubbish because I could originally log in well enough to submit my application. Interestingly the login screen says it is a new service – as in “We wrote this new thing but it doesnt work properly”?
Update 16/5/22 Gave up on the Small Ships Register as I have still got nothing except their complacent newsletter about how marvelously they are looking after shipping. So I have re-submitted the original PDF documents. It seems to me as if government related IT did some sort of a universal reset of it’s email systems – There have been a huge number of “lost” applications for visas from Ukrainian refugees (including the family we are hosting). Similarly the Small Ships Register fiasco that I seem to be experiencing. It could be a coincidence, “overloading of the systems” (or is that under specification compared to demand) or good old incompetent management of the systems.
17/5/22 Yesterday’s re-filing hasn’t provoked even as much as an “email received” message.
23/5/22 OK lets pretend that I never made an application before.
- Step 1 is to set up an account using an email address that isnt shared with anyone else. I will now have to validate that by clicking on a link that they have emailed to me. I will do that at work because I am using my work email address.
- Step 2 Unless they have also changed the form, I have a PDF copy of that on my memory stick so all the documentation according to the old application process can be loaded tomorrow. Interestingly part of the website says you need the radio license (maybe for part 1 of the register?)- I really hope not as the inability to do that was the whole reason for being on their site in the first place.
- Step 3 is presumably to wait the 10 days that their video advertises that it takes to be emailed your registration documents.
24/5/22 Well step 2 was fairly easy so I now have a pseudo random letter and number sequence as an acknowledgement of having submitted the paperwork. They were trying to charge me again so I opted to pay off line which should provoke them into phoning me, unless of course they have the intelligence to realise that the bank statement I included as proof of address includes the payment going out of my account back in February. And yes you can attach your ship’s radio license as evidence. Maybe step 4 can be to get started on the radio licence if they can accept the proof of application rather than a full small ships register entry.
4/6/22 Yay!!!!!!!!!! A response at last – Not sure whether it counts as progress or not or which of the three application attempts it relates to but it would appear that someone named Tracey was working today and emailed apologising that I had not received the prior communication but can they have an emailed copy of the bill of sale. At the time we were driving back home from Cornwall so the reply waited until Sunday.
5/6/22 6:50 ish Sent a reply including the email correspondence from February regarding the bill of sale being impractical and pointless given the time period and sketchy contact potential with the vendor. I also pointed out as tactfully as I could that the date on the email was real and related to the original application just like the date of the bank statement. Maybe if they decide to accept the original decision there just might be some progress and a set of registration documents arriving sometime soon.
3:15 pm – There is an error message response to my email – Looks as if their cloud security system is stopping my emails – Maybe even all emails. Hopefully they have the sense to also send the message to someone at the service supplier or intended recipient for them to sort out the issue as the link just gives a series of problem descriptions.
Re-send
ing the original message and got the same result so it is not a transient issue that has been fixed since this morning.
I have now completed their feedback form – Not given the best possible feedback but it is not really the fault of the staff who have managed to communicate.
7/6/22 After multiple tries at emailing as instructed over the weekend, this morning and again when I got back from work, I have come to the conclusion that their email system never accepts incoming emails with attachments (or maybe just nothing incoming?). I even tried to paste the whole email chain into their feedback message system but that limits you to a few words and there seem to be a lot of hidden characters in the emails so only the latest one seems to fit. Basically I will need to phone tomorrow during a relatively quiet time at work. – Then I can explain both the inability to email anything inwards as well as the reasons why I dont have a bill of sale.
9/6/22 Finally found time to phone them – But everyone on the boat registration section was busy and my call was answered by someone from the Seafarers section instead. I explained the problem and he checked I was using the right email address and assured me that it had been being difficult, should now be working so try again and call back if it still wont work. I tried to get him to transfer me to someone in the right department but no luck there. I didn’t have the right files available to email using my work account so it had to be another try when I got home – Same problem tonight but, as it is now after their office closure time, I got the out of office phone message when I tried to call. At least I now know their office hours are 7:30 am to 6 pm so I might have another try tomorrow.
21/6/22 As the individual that I spoke to on the 9th said they had been having trouble with the email but it is supposed to be fixed, I have randomly tried sending the reason for there being no bill of sale – The email seems consistently to return the same error message. I had another attempt this evening and will definitely try to get on the phone with them tomorrow sometime after arriving at work. Maybe I can get this sorted out before I get involved in the routine day because I never seem to get a gap in which I can call.
21/7/22 Today is a very special day – The small ships register emailed me about my incomplete application. They still want a bill of sale so no change there but this time my reply got an automated response just like I was getting back at the start of the year. I couldnt send them my”no bill of sale” PDF file with the January & February emails but I did at least get through with a brief email explaining that I dont have that documentation and that if they look in January & February emails from my home account they will see why. Tonight I have emailed the file to myself at work so maybe I can reply properly tomorrow with the attachment. Of course that assumes they havent gone off the planet or started “hiding at home” again. I have also printed out the file so I can potentially scan it back into my work computer as a PDF that is inside the security and can be emailed in response to today’s message.
22/7/22 Well if yesterday was a very special day then today is either a major victory or a massive disappointment. – Turns out that Rathenice has a registration number SSR 185041 and has been registered as mine since February. I just never got the email with the registration certificate.
So now i can try to access the partial radio licence application from 5 months ago to add the SSR number and make progress. . Hopefully I can remember or reset my password.
Well I can now answer the question in the title- How hard can it be? Absolutely simple providing you have all the required information.
Well done Ofcom – Very easy to apply and processed fast once I had the SSR number. Must have taken all of 10 minutes start to end.
Small Ship Register – Also very effective but hidden behind a massively problematic email system so I didnt know I was registered. Lets hope it stays fixed now.
First published 22/3/22 but there will be updates once there is progress to report.