Topband: Legality of Circumventing Commercial Maritime ISP Services??

[mstangelo at comcast.net]

Herb,

I agree that one should obey the rules but you should not chastize all users because of the offenses of some.

I used to cruise in the Bahamas in the late 1980's. The incidence of illegial opertion witnessed by me was rather low. You infer that "so many are not even legally licensed". Maybe the percentage went up but I am suprised this is so with the advent of satellite services.

The subject of the original post concerned the Legality of Circumventing Commercial Maritime ISP Services by using Amamteur radio. The offenses you mention are in territorial waters. You cannot use Amateur radio in territorial waters unless you have a reciprocal license from that country. Is it legal to use Commerical Maritime ISP Services in territorial waters? I believe you have to use local land or cellular based services for communications from thes waters.

Mike N2MS
----- Original Message -----
From: Herbert Schonbohm <herbert.schoenbohm at gmail.com>
To: topband at contesting.com
Sent: Sun, 16 Mar 2014 21:48:08 -0000 (UTC)
Subject: Re: Topband: Legality of Circumventing Commercial Maritime ISP	Services??

Mike,


The issue with "cruisers" using the ham bands is that so many are not 
even legally licensed or if they are have no permit to operate in the 
ports and harbors where they are visiting.  Most of the islands in the 
Eastern Caribbean do not permit third party traffic of any kind.  So the 
cruiser scofflaws falsely claim they are "Micky Mouse" to avoid 
suspicion.  Across the Caribbean island you can leave the territorial 
waters of one country and cross into the territorial waters of another.  
When you hear amateurs in the states running a marine radio service on 
any band you normally hear a litany of illegal practices.  Just listen 
to the content of the phone patches and you will quickly see this is true.

When you follow the narrative on the link below you see that EL0BF is 
not a valid amateur license but rather a pirate call.  This raises 
another issue as the sale boat "Fiesty Lady" is a U.S. Registered vessel 
under the flag and laws of the U.S.  The mere idea of just self 
assigning an amateur sounding call for your sailing experiences is 
wrong.  But in this case we have someone who is not by his own admission 
in immediate danger but rather chooses to use amateur radio as his 
communications for a trans-Atlantic crossing.  This not only places him 
in peril for not having the proper communications equipment for such a 
journey but deprives him of a vast world wide system of marine 
communications on frequencies that are monitor by other boats that may 
be only a hour away.  IMHO amateur respecting their hobby must not be 
enablers of this nonsense.

Regards,

Herb Schoenbohm, KV4FZ