First, like Larry mentioned, most radios make using DSC similar to learning sanskrit. You are lucky - Standard Horizon has the most user-friendly DSC software out there. At least our GX-2150 and handheld does.

We preferably call boats on DSC - direct call with no more making repeated requests on a hailing channel, then finding a quiet channel. When hailing channels are yakking all day, we often just go off-channel for the quiet and wait for DSC calls.

Even more, we use DSC position polling a lot. Not only to find where are friends are in an area, but if I am out in the dinghy fishing (for example) with our DSC handheld (always), Michele simply pushes a button and my position automatically shows up on our chartplotter.

If we need to explore a tricky entrance in the dinghy before taking in the main boat, I simply take our handheld in the dinghy and push waypoints back to our chartplotter. When I get back to the boat, the route through the pass is already in our chartplotter. Or, Michele just follows along as I send waypoints to her.

One really nice feature of the SH AIS radio we have is that you can make a DSC call by simply highlighting a vessel on AIS and push "call". Since more and more small boats have AIS transponders now, this makes even casual calls easy.

Mark