[CQ-Contest] anti-contest petition MMSN

[brian coyne]

When I lived in Falmouth Cornwall UK more than 20 years ago I helped out from time to time on the maritime mobile net which was run by a another Falmouth ham,  Rudi G4FTO. IIRC it was either this same qrg or maybe 14330.0 also it ran for a couple of hours from around  18.00z.

It was by no means an emergency listening service but it was a very valuable service for the many yachties in various areas of the Atlantic and Mediterranean waters. Each day Rudi would compile and read a weather report and forecast for as far as the south Atlantic. Very importantly too guys on the water would call in reporting their present positions. That daily call in would assure that they were still safe and accounted for which news could be passed to their families and friends when they telephoned Rudi who would also relay important messages. All in all a vital and unmatchable service (no sat phones back then, or if they had just come in not affordable by ordinary Joe's. 

I don't know about MMSN but presume that they do a similar operation so I would say 'don't knock it without knowing exactly what they do'
Many of the yachtie guys, whilst they hold ham licences do so only for this purpose and have little operating or practical knowlege of the hobby, possibly only equipped with one single 20m antenna, so 17m may not be an option. Whilst they all will have maritime vhf not all will have satnav phones even if they have sat distress capability. Ergo 20m communication may be all that they have when out of vhf range.

Whilst CQWW does put a very great strain on all available spectrum I feel that it is important that we should listen to this request and grant this important and valuable service this small peice of the band that it needs.

73  Brian 5B4AIZ.





--- On Fri, 4/12/09, SP1NY <sp1ny at wp.pl> wrote:

> From: SP1NY <sp1ny at wp.pl>
> Subject: [CQ-Contest]  anti-contest petition MMSN
> To: cq-contest at contesting.com
> Date: Friday, 4 December, 2009, 9:54
> 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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