This MMSN petition sounds ridiculous for me.
I spent 25 years at sea on merchant vessels operating world wide, at
first as a Radio Officer
then as Electronic Technician Officer. I was a witness of the end era of
old fashion emmergency
communication on 500 kHz CW and 2182 SSB. Since begining of '90 a new
GMDSS (Global Marine
Distress and Search System based on sat comm has been implemented. All
big MF/HF transmitters
gone and small boxes with few buttons took their place. Thats why I had
to shift to ETO because
R/O position was not necessary anymore. There are still some freq on 4,
6, 8 Mhz designed for
emergency maritime traffic but I don't think if there is any.
In case of distress is much more easier to push "red button", type kind
of distress or choose
it from the list and go to save own life. Distress call reaching
Maritime Rescue Center in the matter
of seconds and coordinated rescue operation begins. No need wasting time
to tune radio, discuss
with NET control etc...
On te other hand most HF radios which are included in GMDSS console on
board of the vessels
have wide range Rx but Tx can transmitt only on maritime freqencies, and
they are with
power 150-300W in to 5m whip ant.
Some info about GMDSS you can find here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Selective_Calling#Digital_Selective_Calling
That's my two cents.
73's Mirek SP1NY
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