Everything VHF Radio Assistant does

UK and Irish compliance standards

Auto-generates legal, word-perfect scripts adhering strictly to MCA (Maritime and Coastguard Agency), Irish Coast Guard (IRCG), and international Short Range Certificate (SRC) radio protocols.

Five operator command suites

Word-perfect, context-aware transmission scripts, generated instantly across five dedicated categories:

• Vessel commands — standard ship-to-ship operational and safety communications
• Marina & port commands — localised docking requests, berth allocations, and lock/marina facility coordination
• Coastguard commands — compliance templates for emergency check-ins, transit reports and safety updates with HM Coastguard or the Irish Coast Guard
• VTS commands — reporting for official traffic routing, port control and commercial shipping lanes
• Buddy vessel commands — quick-action routing templates for a companion boat

Emergency & distress compliance

Instantly structures high-pressure transmissions — Mayday, Pan-Pan and Sécurité — complete with automatic NATO phonetic alphabet spelling for vessel callsigns.

Fully customisable, every button

Create new command buttons, edit existing ones, and rewrite the scripts they generate to match your own routine. Every button's quick replies are user-defined too — adapt your scripted responses to whatever a port controller or nearby vessel comes back with, one tap at a time.

Live telemetry, filled in automatically

Vessel name, callsign, MMSI, exact position, course over ground and speed over ground — mapped straight into the transmission text, every time.

Settle your breathing before you transmit

A rhythmic visual guide to settle your breathing and pacing before you open the channel — syncing key maritime phrasings to a steady cadence for smooth, clear radio communication.

Pre-trip warmup, right there in Settings

Run through Pre-Trip Vocal Pacing whenever you like, straight from Settings — a rhythmic visual breathing guide that helps you practise relaxed breathing, gentle vocal onset, and smooth word blending, before you're ever on a live channel.

Phonetic options and paced display

Switch between standard and phonetic text at any time — the layout updates instantly, whichever mode you're in. Prefer a steadier pace? Turn on Paced Script Display in Settings and it applies everywhere, including your real live call scripts — breaking phrases into visually isolated, cadence-driven blocks with wider word spacing, breathing markers and highlighted phonetics on screen. It only ever changes how the script looks, never the words themselves.

Try it for real, without a real radio

Switch on Demo Mode and the app populates itself with realistic vessel traffic, marinas and a simulated GPS position — every button, script and screen works exactly as it would at sea, with nothing actually transmitted. It's the whole app, not a cut-down preview.

Proper replies, not just a script to read

Press any reply button and you get a proper response back, just as if it were real — so you can practise a full back-and-forth exchange, not just send a call into silence. It's the closest thing to using it on the water, done entirely from your armchair.

AIS Digital Safety Receiver Terminal

Turn your tablet into an intelligent, passive maritime data interface.

Go beyond basic radio monitoring. VHF Radio Assistant captures, decodes, and visualises enterprise-grade digital safety data streams directly in the cockpit — completely offline.

• Type 14 broadcast alert decoding — instantly intercept safety warnings broadcast over the airwaves by nearby vessels. If a ship logs a mechanical failure or a hazard like a drifting shipping container, the app captures the digital data packet and flashes the alert directly onto your screen.
• Type 12 targeted message reception — receive precise, direct text alerts sent by a specific vessel, buddy boat, or shore station targeted to your unique MMSI number. This allows you to stay informed of critical local safety manoeuvres without cluttering general voice channels.
• The automated voice response loop — the moment an incoming Type 12 or Type 14 digital alert hits your network, the spatial engine parses the text packet and automatically pre-fills your Operator Command Suites. Review the threat, tap one button, and generate a flawless, context-aware voice response script ready to read over your VHF radio.

AIS-to-AIS real-time vectoring

As long as both vessels are transmitting AIS, the spatial engine locks onto the live telemetry and calculates an automated intercept route.

Find a vessel three ways

Search by name, MMSI, or callsign — or just tap the target directly on the chart.

Predictive intercept steering

Analyses both vessels' telemetry to project a precise Closest Point of Approach and the exact point of contact — then gives you the course to steer and the speed to hold, updated in real time, to get there efficiently.

Flags close-quarters vessels in red

Running quietly in the background while you're on the radio or anywhere else in the app, it flags any vessel closing to a risky distance in red, with COLREG-aligned calls ready to go — the vessel's name, your own vessel name, and the closest marker or lat/lng dropped in automatically if you need it. The same warning plots straight onto the chart too.

Collision Risk View

While a CPA alert is active, opening it shows a clear relative-motion picture instead of the normal view — your vessel and every nearby vessel's heading, not just the one causing the alert, so you can see the whole picture before altering course. Toggle the real chart on for context or off for a cleaner picture, either way. It projects exactly where and when vessels will be at their closest, lets you trial a hypothetical turn at your current speed to see the resulting distance, and warns you if that same turn would put you on a new collision course with a different vessel. Confirm your course change and it builds the proper VHF call for you to send.

Unmanned detection

Automatically recognises when a solo sailor is overboard and the vessel is left unmanned.

Automated VHF Mayday

Instantly transmits an automated digital Mayday broadcast, complete with the precise coordinates of the beacon.

Extended range relay

Uses the vessel's fixed radio infrastructure to bridge the alert to rescue stations and nearby vessels out to your vessel's own VHF radio range, typically up to 15nm — significantly extending the beacon's own approximate 2nm range.

Four broadcasts, then it stops itself

The Mayday repeats roughly every 4 minutes — matching official GMDSS guidance for an unacknowledged distress alert — up to a maximum of 4 times. After that, it stops automatically for good, guaranteeing the loop can never run on and on regardless of whether anyone's answered. The boat still listens and answers VL, VD and ML queries afterward — only the repeating Mayday itself goes quiet.

Remote stand-down

Search and Rescue and the Coastguard stay in control of the broadcast throughout. Once they've assessed the situation, they can silence the loop remotely — freeing the channel immediately, rather than waiting for it to run its course.

Stops itself once SAR is close enough

No command needed. The app quietly watches for any vessel broadcasting its ordinary AIS signal as a Search and Rescue vessel — a standard classification, not something specific to this app. Once one comes within about 2 nautical miles of the beacon, the loop stops itself automatically, since SAR should be able to pick up the beacon directly from there. It's still being tracked — only the repeating broadcast goes quiet.

Plot relative to any marker — no coordinates needed

Drop an accurate waypoint relative to any buoy, beacon, light or landmark. Search for the marker, give a distance in nautical miles and a compass bearing, and the offline spatial engine does the range-and-bearing maths instantly — no typing coordinates at a bouncing helm.

Manual coordinates, when you want them

For route validation or offshore plotting, you can always override and type in latitude and longitude directly instead.

The spatial awareness engine continuously surfaces the three most relevant points of interest around you:

• The 3 closest marinas or ports, for rapid entry and refuge planning
• The 3 closest navigation markers or buoys, for instant range and bearing references
• The 3 closest vessels by CPA/TCPA, so you can manage collision risk before it becomes a problem

Each Marina, VTS/Harbour Master, or Coastguard entry's working channel is a starting point for reference — always confirm the current channel for that specific area and update its entry in your local directory if it's changed.

100% on-device processing

Every spatial calculation, route log, AIS parse and profile detail stays entirely on your physical device.

Device-to-device Bluetooth sync

A custom-built, air-gapped BLE pipeline — with strict handle cache management — beams bulk data (custom buttons, quick replies, marina directories) or single-frame targets (intercept points, offset markers) directly between the Captain's and Crew's tablets, over the air.

Zero internet dependency

Built to work flawlessly in blue-water conditions — fully isolated from cellular networks, Wi-Fi, or any remote server.

Seamless gateway bridging

Functions as a standalone network socket client over local Wi-Fi, parsing streams natively from common multiplexers and wireless links — including Digital Yacht, Actisense, and Yacht Devices.