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(Huntingtown, MD 051107) It was only a matter of time. Late in the evening of 5/11/07 a foreign ship off loading liquid natural gas at the local LNG facility appeared on the input of GMRS repeater KAF9830 located at PopularWireless and PRA HQ, the home of PopWireless Editor and PRA Board of Trustee’s President Doug Smith. The ship was operating on 467.650 MHz, a frequency not authorized for use or even suggested for use in the USA by ships from other countries.

A call to the on-duty security officer at the LNG facility succeeded in the ship moving to 467.600 MHz. That frequency is also not mentioned in any foreign treaty as authorized for use in the United States. Another follow-up call to the security officer moved the ship to 467.675 MHz which caused no end of grief for a GMRS repeater believed to be in Pennsylvania.

This particular night, tropospheric ducting was evident. The transmissions from the ship, using CTCSS encoding, brought up a repeater hundreds of miles away. An unidentified operator of the victim repeater using only a made up three-digit unit number, (output 462.675) repeatedly demanded the identification of the ship’s radio operator who could not hear the enraged repeater operator. Interestingly, this repeater is one that is so far unidentified. The same operators are routinely heard during tropospheric ducting events failing to identify with GMRS call signs. It was odd that one potentially unlicensed operator/intruder was demanding the credentials of another!

The captain of the vessel registered on the Isle of Man and staffed by a UK crew claimed not to have the 457.525 MHz and 457.575 MHz treaty channels required for use in the United States. Our NTIA regulations require visiting ships to use those two 457 MHz frequencies and NOT the GMRS frequencies. “Should the ship indeed not have the required US operating channels - well that opens up a whole new can of worms. What do we do then?” said Doug Smith, owner of the Huntingtown, MD GMRS repeater.

The LNG facility is conducting an inquiry and Riley Hollingsworth was notified by email. The PRA knows the name of the ship and will ask the FCC to write the shipping company upon conclusion of the LNG facility investigation. That facility remained steadfast in its support of the local GMRS community. The PRA and Popular Wireless Magazine are dumbfounded that the promised assistance of the Coast Guard is having no apparent effect on the problem in ANY US port. “We never saw a copy of the completed inter-agency memo. We just understood specific text was prepared for such a memo, to be sent as directed by Kris Montieth Chief of the FCC Enforcement Bureau. The FCC decided late in 2006 to no longer make certain enforcement letters and memorandum public,” smith said.

The acronym FSI was coined at PopularWireless Magazine to mean Foreign Shipping Interference or GMRS radio interference from foreign vessels improperly using GMRS repeater input or output channels while in US waters.