(DougWeb) In the last hour and a half this Friday afternoon three vessels have called for radio checks on marine VHF Channel 16. The Coast Guard reminds boaters on the air and in their various boating courses that radio checks are not permitted on channel 16.

(DougWeb) On the mid-Chesapeake (Annapolis to Cove Point) marine VHF channel 68 156.425 MHz has become a toilet of pornographic filth. Sadly some adults have no personal standards. On Sunday afternoon April 19, I heard some of the filthiest diatribes I have ever heard. Most of what was said beats the garbage mouths one hears on the CB radio.

[Ed Note: What is marine radio like in your community?]

The U.S. Coast Guard has released new footage of the rescue of former University of South Florida football player Nick Schuyler, as he clung to the hull of a boat in the Gulf of Mexico.

read more | digg story

Lowrance, a brand by Navico, the world
’s leading manufacturer of leisure marine electronics, is showing for the first time in Europe the newest addition to its VHF product line, the LHR-80 VHF/GPS handheld marine radio.

read more | digg story

Digital Selective Calling is a radio technology for your boat that has come of age. How to set up a VHF radio equipped with DSC on your boat, and how to use a marine VHF DSC radio to call your friends while boating.

read more | digg story

This afternoon I was listening at home to marine VHF channel 16.  A Coast Guard Cutter  was doing buoy tender duty along the Chesapeake. Now if you have ever seen a buoy tender work it is a virtual ballet of extraordinary precision all done in the water. The Cutter uses an on board crane to raise and lower navigation buoys for maintenance or seasonal changes.

The captains of thease vessels make periodic announcements on VHF Channel 16 regarding their operations. These announcements ask that vessels leave NO WAKE.  The cutters mean NO WAKE. Crane operations in progress are far more dangerous in moving water. It is expected that vessels close to the cutter will hear the broadcasts and follow the instructions of the cutter captain.

Hearing the cutter make this request reinforced in my mind the boating safety training I received early this year sponsored by the Coast Guard Auxiliary.  The instructors emphasized the necessity to monitor VHF channel 16 for emergencies, navigation alerts, and weather broadcasts. Anyone that operates a boat over a certain size must have a VHF radio on board. Vessels not required to carry VHF are encouraged to do so.  The reasons are quite apparent. There are going to be safety related broadcasts that you may want to hear as you operate your own craft.

Despite the cutter making periodic broacasts a motor vessel zoomed past the cutter during a crane operation. The captain of the pleasure boat received a call from the Coast Guard.  One careless boater failing to excercise common sense endangered the crew of the cutter!

Do you own a boat? Do you have marine VHF on board? Are you maintaining a radio watch? Do you listen for issues close to your location that could affect your ability to navigate?  When you see a buoy tender or ANY vessel of the United States Coast Guard are you giving that vessel and its crew the respect it deserves?

When you are on the water listen to VHF channel 16 and pay attention. Never conductb a radio check on channel 16. Radio checks are conducted on channel 9 the alternate calling channel. Know your boating radio regulations!

…and PNC Bank is also on my list of financial institutions that could care less about the average Joe.

Apparently when you travel to a foreign country INCLUDING CANADA VIA turns off your ATM card. My wife is currently traveling in Toronto and has NO ACCESS TO HER ACCOUNTS.

When I called my BANK, PNC Bank based in Maryland, and D.C. all they could do was tell me to call a VISA 800 number.

This has been going on for TWO DAYS and she has yet to be able to access an ATM there.

This was NEVER a problem beofre and now it apparently is a VERY BIG problem.

I am POISED to take all of my accounts out of my current bank PnC Bank for their INABILITY and UNWILLINGNESS to help my wife access her funds a few hundred miles outside of the USA.

When you travel to Canada be SURE to call VISA AND TAKE AMERICAN EXPRESS. I am calling American Express Gold Card people next!

I am SO TIRED of being treated like SCUM by so-called American businesses. Damn tired.

PopularWireless advertiser RadiosOnline.com (Advantage Communications) sells Comtelco antennas. Comtelco makes UHF marine antennas suitable for GMRS mobile operation. Contact RadiosOnline.com and tell them Clip Leader sent you.

After I wrote the article on using real GMRS radios on-board vessels in the US I started looking for equipment to recommend. The problem is the retailers and manufacturers see GMRS as a chew-toy bubble-pack market. It is easier to sell a toy GMRS radio for $39.95 than a real repeater capable GMRS radio because repeaters are just not everywhere. Still, you would think someone is making UHF transmitting antennas for marine use since the rest of the world including Asia, Europe, Australia etc all use UHF marine channels which happen to be in part on the same frequencies the same as the United States GMRS!

The one or two watt GMRS bubble-pack radios are convenient and make excellent supplemental portable radios for a complete family GMRS system. The bubble-packs do not do repeaters and are of limited range. Despite what the inflated range claims say a bubble-pack will not talk back home if your home is eight miles inland on the other side of a forest.  Use a bubble pack to stay in touch with your real GMRS boat radio while you are in port but don’t get more than a haf mile away for a reliable signal.

I checked the 2008 catalogs of the most likely sources for marine antennas. Both West Marine and Boater’s World have huge selections but not one marine antenna outside of marine VHF and marine SSB or cellular. I’m a big fan of both retailers. Each store is a terrific place to go for marine electronics and twelve-volt accessories.

Australia seems to be the most likely importer of real UHF commercial quality antennas for boats. A company called ZCG makes the ZCG Scalar brand UHF marine antenna. It appears from their website that they offer antennas made for other than the 477 MHz UHF CB radio.  Plugging in the lowest GMRS channel 462.55 MHz and the highest 467.550 MHz puts one of their specialty antennas within their manufacturing range.

Please take a minute to email us if you are aware of other retail sources for UHF marine antennas in the United States. Send us photos of your own UHF GMRS installs on your boats and the pictures will be published here. Do a write up the magazine can share about how you did the install and how well it works.

PopularWireless would like to hear from retailers in other parts  of the world interested in selling UHF antennas for the US GMRS. Tell us about your products and how US residents can obtain them.

Does your family own a boat? Does your family own a small charter service? Do you have difficulty calling to shore using your cellular telephone? Are you using marine VHF-FM illegally to call home or contact your business? Let’s look at the various regulations and some of the radio services available to families and then look seriously at the General Mobile Radio Service. When you take the Coast Guard Auxiliary Boating Safety Course as I did this year you attend a session on the various communication options available to boaters and communication regulations that boaters must follow. You learn than under FCC Rules part 80 it is not permitted to use your marine radio on shore. Marine radios are for safety,navigation,and commerce. When you re on the water VHF-FM is intended for the boater to call for help on Channel 16, contact marinas, vessel services, and other boaters. It was never intended to permit boaters to contact their home on shore. Unfortunately people do it anyway. Monitoring VHF marine on the Chesapeake I regularly hear groups of people in vehicle caravans using VHF marine. When I worked in consumer electronics retail I met boaters that purchased cable and connectors to put up base station marine radios knowing it was against the law. (Only the Coast Guard and Auxiliary units, and FCC licensed coast stations engaged in commerce are permitted to operate on land. The typical family boater operating a vessel under a certain size is not required to have a VHF marine radio license but that license-free privilege does not permit land-based operation or violating the FCC Rules.

FCC Part 80.13(c):(c) A ship station is licensed by rule and does not need an individual license issued by the FCC if the ship station is not subject to the radio equipment carriage requirements of any statute, treaty or agreement to which the United States is signatory, the ship station does not travel to foreign ports, and the ship station does not make international communications. A ship station licensed by rule is authorized to transmit radio signals using a marine radio operating in the 156–162 MHz band, any type of AIS, any type of EPIRB, and any type of radar installation. All other transmissions must be authorized under a ship station license. Even though an individual license is not required, a ship station licensed by rule must be operated in accordance with all applicable operating requirements, procedures, and technical specifications found in this part.

Sec. 80.89 Unauthorized transmissions. Stations must not: (a) Engage in superfluous telecommunication. (d) When using telephony, transmit signals or communications not addressed to a particular station or stations. This provision does not apply to the transmission of distress, alarm, urgency, or safety signals or messages, or to test transmissions. (e) Transmit while on board vessels located on land unless authorized under a public coast station license. Vessels in the following situations are not considered to be on land for the purposes of this paragraph: (1) Vessels which are aground due to a distress situation; (2) Vessels in drydock undergoing repairs; and (3) State or local government vessels which are involved in search and rescue operations including related training exercises. (f) Transmit on frequencies or frequency bands not authorized on the current station license.

Given that most family communication might be considered superfluous and directed at a land station marine VHF-FM is not the choice for such communication. Why take the risk of a heavy fine? Years ago many boaters used CB radios. That was before the illegal activity on CB rendered it pretty much useless. The Coast Guard Boating Safety Course warns us against the character of the service and asks us to remember that CB is NOT monitored for safety and distress transmissions. So what’s left? The General Mobile radio Service is what’s left. You are allowed up to fifty watts of transmitting power into a gain antenna on board your boat, in your car, or at your home. There are no restrictions associated with use on the water just the same precautionary note that the Coast guard does not monitor GMRS for distress traffic. A GMRS license covers you and your immediately family, including those not living in your household. When you head out on a boating weekend all of your relatives can use the GMRS mobile station with your call letters in your car, boat, or home. Your usable distance compared to VHF marine may in some cases may be far greater when using GMRS repeaters. In southern Maryland you can probably talk to homes on land from the Chesapeake and the Patuxent, and down in St Mary’s while boating in the Potomac. Does that interest you? Let’s say you own a small charter boat business. You and your family are the employees. You may conduct ship to shore business activity by two-way radio using GMRS where using your cellular telephone doesn’t make sense. GMRS can also be used for boat-to-boat communication. Several fishing boats working together can talk to one another using GMRS in order to avoid the frivolous communication rule. What everyone does have to do on GMRS is share frequencies so you would still not monopolize a GMRS channel with your radio traffic. GMRS is a place to communicate when using marine radio might be illegal, improper, or where cellular does not work. What’s your investment? There is an $85 license fee that covers your family and you for five years. A commercial quality UHF radio used or new from $100 up. A UHF antenna $50 to $100 dollars. Good quality coaxial cable used in marine environments. The base station requirements vary depending on where you are and how you plan to contact the boat either direct or through a repeater station. In some cases all you would need is a low-cost portable radio. Consider using GMRS on board your boat. It is a viable option for any family or family-owned business. The VHF Multi-Use Radio Service is a possibluity for close-in communication. Beach to boat communication within a few miles would be possible. The equipment cost would be smaller. MURS radios are low power but external antennas can be used. Om-board a boat you could use a second marine antenna for your MURS antenna. There are nio repeaters on MURS. Need to know more? Visit our marine forum here at PopularWireless.

The Coast Guard in this Press Release point out that they do pursue prosecution of persons responsible for fake calls. Marine radio users should never make false distress calls or make fake calls by telephone.

read more | digg story

Canadian Military Signs Contract to Evaluate Suitability for Northern Surveillance.

(PopWireless: COMM DEV wants to receive AIS data by satellite and make the data available on earth eliminating the need for thousands of shore based dedicated receivers. This is interesting because AIS monitoring by ship spotters is a new and exciting hobby that got its start when AIS was created in 2004.  PopularWireless maintains an AIS receiver on the Chesapeake Bay at Plum Point, MD to assist in the identification of ships using GMRS radio frequencies in US waters – FSI identification. The PopularWireless AIS receiver data is output to a publicly available Google Map.)
read more | digg story

This U.S. Coast Guard approved 2-Way Radio Life Vest features dual, 14-channel two-way radios that are integrated into the chest area of the life vest, with another unit located on a boat or on shore for instant communication purposes no matter the situation.

(Click read more below to read the article referred to.)

(PopWireless: This radio escaped the radar of this magazine since the advertisement makes no mention whatsoever of the radio service in which these devices operate. We suspect this an FRS radio being sold to the public as a save-your-life radio.

At the magazine we have a problem with this device. There is no emergency frequency in the Family Radio Service that we know of but we suspect this is indeed a Family Radio Service radio. The Family Radio Service is now cluttered with levels of radio interference so high in some urban, park, and recreational areas that controlling that interference in order to monitor and find a person gone over board would probably result in tragic circumstances. It is absolutely bizarre that any clear-thinking company or the Coast Guard would would suggest this radio is good for, “instant communication purposes no matter the situation.” A tragic suggestion.

The maritime enthusiast should always have a marine VHF radio on board to signal the Coast Guard in an emergency. We suspect that the Coast Guard’s radio-direction finding resources are focused in the marine VHF service. We do not know for sure how they would respond to a person missing wearing an FRS radio. The person gone over board would be far more likely to attract attention if they broadcast for help on Marine Channel 16 than if they broadcast on a Family Radio Service channel. This radio is all about marine rescue on the cheap. We feel differently about the value of your life.

Where we see this vest having some utility is for skier to boat communication. Any situation where you can see and wave to someone wearing this vest is a great place to use a radio to also hear them. “We’re coming around to pick you up, or Are you OK after that wipe out,” are likely scenarios. In each case you can get immediately back to the swimmer. What an FRS radio is not is a radio to make up for lack of planning or to use in lieu of common sense an acceptable practice or out of visual range!

Explore the use of this vest but be careful how you choose to use it. We would also love to know why the advertisers of this life-saving device failed to disclosed the frequencies on which the device operated. Odd indeed.)

read more | digg story

“Unfortunately, the infrastructure necessary to provide these services has exceeded its life expectancy. The equipment is no longer manufactured, repairs are difficult to accomplish, and spare parts are generally not available.” With new technologies like WLO
’s internet services…. is a traditional HF system necessary? (Click read more below to read the original article.)

(PopWireless: This is unfortunately old news. Comments were due the Coast Guard on August 24. It is something worth following however. Another major change in marine radio just like the end of Morse Code could be the demise of SSB.)

read more | digg story

Neo-Fights’s ‘Marine Week’ continues with two essential boating gadgets. The Magellan eXplorist XL and the Uniden Voyager VHF Marine Radio (Video) (Click read more below to visit the blog and watch the video.) 

(PopWireless: This is very cool idea! Video blogging of gadgets. Cool couple talks straight about things that we passionately believe in and that is GPS and marine radio. We have no opinion one way or the other regarding the two items discussed I just think this is a cool way to make a point. Do you think they might accept videos from PopularWireless about equipment we would like to talk about?)

read more | digg story

UNIDEN now offers the MHS550 Marine radio with the license-free Family Radio Service channels. This very unique dual-band VHF-UHF radio gives a boater the ability to use marine VHF for essential boating safety communication and his or her family the ability to chat about family activities on the water or on land without worrying about the on-the-water-only operation restrictions of VHF marine (See FCC Rules Part 80) or the license requirements of a twenty-two channel General Mobile Radio Service radio. (See FCC Rules Part 95) Compared to most of the bubble-pack 22-channel radios the boating family will have fourteen channels on which to operate without a license instead of the seven available on most new 22-channel bubble-pack GMRS radios. The bubble-packs, as they have come to be known, offer a GMRS power level on FRS channels one through seven since the licensed GMRS service allows up to five watts Effective Radiated Power on FRS 1-7. Those channels are actually part of the GMRS shared with FRS. Marketing and sales deficiencies of major retailers over the years since the FCC’s unilateral approval of the 22-channel bubble packs have made unwitting radio pirates of many families using 22-channel bubble pack radios. Uniden has given families back that piece of mind that the radio in use is legal to operate on FRS without a license. It was the right thing to do. You can purchase the radio on line at RadioShack.com.

Around 4AM this morning I heard a large passenger ship and a cargo ship talking about a much smaller vessel in the deep water shipping lane of the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the Choptank River. This smaller boat was actually in some peril because both big boats were converging upon the smaller boat at about the same time. In order to avoid a collision, the big boats had to determine how to pass each other and then guess how the smaller boat would react. They needed to know the intentions of the smaller craft. This maritime radio-ballet is heard many times during the day at all hours. The dance is however a lot more successful if all parties on the dance floor are aware of each other or more accurately on the same radio channel so they can enjoy the dance together.

There was some real life drama to this event. Why isn’t the operator of the little boat listening? Why isn’t he responding? Is he intentionally causing a problem or is he just an inexperienced boater? Is something big about to happen and am I listening a fateful event about to unravel. Leaning into the radio I turned up the volume.

Both big boats hailed the operator (I hesitate to use the word captain) of the smaller boat for a good twenty minutes on VHF marine channels 16, 13, and 9. In the Bay, large vessels have to monitor channel 13 for navigation purposes. Finally the smaller boat answered up on channel 16. One big boat heard the smaller boat and the other big boat did not. The first big ship asked the small boat to move out of the way off to the west immediately and to stay out of the shipping lane as the big boats passed. The Master of the second big ship was more firm. He told the small boat operator to PAY ATTENTION to and to MONITOR the correct channels on his VHF marine radio if he was going to sailing in the real world and to better yet stay the heck out of the deep water shipping lanes with his tiny vessel! It was a classic butt chewing for an amateur seaman that made everyone else’s life more dangerous.

The little boat got out of the way and the big ships sailed on. Thank you captains!

Failing to keep a proper watch on VHF marine radio really is a big problem on our waterways here, and one problem the Coast Guard and local law enforcement should worry about more. It is, in my view, an obvious security vulnerability as well as a threat to basic safety and the continued safety of maritime commerce. The local mariners that do not understand navigation or how to use a VHF marine radio for navigation safety should be back in boaters school learning what they need to know before being allowed back on the water.

It is incredulous to hear on our water ways that the policing of bad habits is predominantly self policing. The Masters of larger ships, some from foreign countries, are educating local residents in smaller boats on the finer points of inland navigation and boating safety. Local law enforcement officials remain mysteriously absent. We see the Coast Guard aircraft patrolling the Bay on weekends. Occasionally we hear the Coast Guard boarding pleasure craft conducting inspections. You don’t often hear officials chasing down the errant sailor that put the lives of everyone aboard two large ships at risk by failing to keep a radio watch.

FCC Part 80 Rules do say that a VHF marine radio is not required on pleasure craft of a certain size but if the vessel is equipped and the radio is on the operator MUST maintain a watch. Perhaps the rules should read if you plan to play with the big dogs you best be ready to chat with them at a moment’s notice!

Do you live in a marine community? Are you listening to marine VHF radio to find out how safe your waters are? Are you a boater? Are you teaching everyone in your family how to maintain a radio watch? Do they know the purposes of the various marine channels? Are you the master of your vessel or just a local nuisance? Good questions.