How should I prepare for my SRC course?

The Marine VHF Radio ‘Short Range Certificate’ (SRC) is required to operate marine VHF GMDSS radio equipment on a vessel. This includes both fixed and handheld equipment with and without Digital Selective Calling (DSC). The Short Range Certificate issued in the UK is in line with other European countries.

The course subjects include:
✓ Routine operation of marine VHF radio including Digital Selective Calling
✓ Knowledge of VHF channels (frequencies) to be used for each type of communication
✓ Distress, emergency and medical assistance procedures
✓ Practical use of Marine VHF DSC radios
✓ Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (GMDSS)
✓ Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacons (EPIRB)
✓ Search and Rescue Transponders (SART)

Structure of the course:
The course is structured in 3 parts, i.e.
   1. Self-study via an e-Learning platform 
   2. Classroom workshop at our training centre
   3. Exam at our training centre
The classroom workshop and the exam will take place at the same location and date. The total duration of the course is 14 hours. This consists of approximately 8 hours of pre-course study at home, and 6 hours of classroom workshop and exam.

Self-study as preparation for the classroom workshop
The self-study online course module must be completed before joining the classroom workshop session. After completion of the various sections of the self-study online course, a knowledge check will be available to you. The pass mark for the knowledge check is 60%. When you have passed, you can download your self-study online course completion certificate. You are now ready to join the SRC course workshop in preparation of your exam.

Program of the SRC classroom course workshop
The workshop and exam takes place in English. 

The program consists of:
• Main functions on VHF radios such as Digital Selective Calling
• Understanding of radio ranges
• Licenses, call signs and MMSI
• Making a voice call, sending Distress/urgency messages
• GMDSS, such as EPIRB, SART, NAVTEX, AIS
• Distress relay and Safety messages

How to best prepare for your classroom course workshop

We expect you to study and practice the following topics, in order to know these by heart during the classroom course.
• International spell alphabet
• Prowords
• Pronouncing numbers (e.g. positions in latitude and longitude)

In addition, we ask you to familiarise yourself with the practical procedures related to:
• Distress and Mayday communication
• Urgency and Pan Pan communication
• Mayday Relay communication

Having properly studied the theory of marine radio communications before joining the course at our training centre will make your course workshop more enjoyable with lots of hands-on time spend working with our radio’s and putting your acquired knowledge into practice.