If you're new to PopularWireless, you may want to subscribe to the RSS feed. Also visit our forums to meet the many regular users of the PopularWireless community. Thanks for visiting!

(Huntingtown, MD) - Despite continued attention to the problem by the PRA, and even an inter-agency memo from the FCC to the Coast Guard in October 2006 as a result of the PRA pushing back on the FCC, GMRS piracy remains a serious problem on the Chesapeake Bay.

In the first week of May 2007 foreign ships were heard operating on 467.600, 467.675, 467.550, and 467.575. Add this activity up with the crane operator in Dorchester County, MD illegally using 467.725 for crane/tower operations and you have one hell of a mess. Local repeater owner Larry Norris, KAE4617 regularly has vessel audio sneaking through squelch tails on his 462.575 system in Leonardtown, MD.

Only a very small part of the problem remains under control. One local industrial port managed by Dominion Inc. routinely works with local licensees to mitigate interference from ships docked at their facility. Dominion takes facility security and community security very seriously. Local licensees appreciate Dominion’s continued responsiveness. In today’s world getting and keeping the attention of a big company on a local problem is not always easy. Dominion remains a great neighbor.

FCC Special Counsel Riley Hollingsworth, at the direction of Kris Montieth FCC Enforcement Bureau Chief wrote the Coast Guard an inter-agency memo asking Coast Guard’s help in this matter. To date on the Chesapeake Bay between Plum Point and the Port of Baltimore the Coast Guard memo has had no apparent effect. A local source close to this problem said that as of January 2007 the local Coast Guard officer that routinely boards visiting vessels was completely unaware of any FCC communication regarding this issue. That was pointed out to the FCC.

PopularWireless does know that ITU Regulations clearly state that governments have the RIGHT to specify which radio frequencies are used by foreign ships visiting their ports. In the United States our NTIA specifies those frequencies as 457.525 and 457.575 MHz. Those same ITU regulations clearly state that foreign ships may NOT interfere with communications when visiting foreign ports and must identify their transmitters. Not one ship this weekend has identified with a call sign and none of them is doing their part to avoid interference to GMRS repeater operations in Southern Maryland. We do have to be fair to some boat captains. PRA monitoring of the above 457 MHz treaty frequencies does indicate some ships are using the allowed channels. Some ships however use those as well as channels in the GMRS.

Nationwide this has been a problem for twenty plus years. It was first written about at this magazine in the year 2000. (See the previous link for information updated in 2007.) The Personal Radio Association, Inc. still wants to hear from every victim of foreign shipping interference - FSI. In late 2006 a repeater owner in the New Orleans, LA area filed a PRA complaint against a prominent cruise line that used 467.575 in port causing severe interference to his repeater. While we have not seen a copy of the letter, Riley Hollingsworth told the PRA Enforcement Team that a letter was sent to the cruise line. Hollingsworth also said in emails to the PRA that letters were going out to various ports, Pilot associations, and addresses of foreign shipping associations that had already responded to the PRA in 2005.

Obtaining the cooperation of shipping companies, boat captains, and boat radio officers has not been easy. Routinely, attempts to communicate with vessels on the air are ignored. Sometimes the ships change frequencies but often they just change to another GMRS input. In Maryland the company that has had the greatest influence is again Dominion.

It remains a busy weekend on GMRS repeater inputs in Southern Maryland and the activity is not that of GMRS licensees. Along the Chesapeake, pirates rule the waves. Why this piracy problem is a homeland security issue with a private energy company and not with our national government remains a mystery.