[600MRG] 600MRG Digest, Vol 76, Issue 9

[Bart Lee]

Re NAVTEX propagation beacon?

Landlubber here... but I sometimes monitor San Francisco NAVTEX. Maybe for
small vessels the automatic print-out is very convenient. Listening to the
radio, as much as I enjoy doing that, may be a luxury in small boats.

Most NAVTEX is routine.  Still, sometimes one sees a USCG bulletin about,
say, a distress beacon heard so an all vessels alert and a search and then
nothing found.  I suspect that NAVTEX is quicker than programming the
robots to talk on the marine bands. The General Marine Distress and Safety
System (GMDSS) may require continuous monitoring of NAVTEX but I'm not sure
of that. The wiki says: " International Convention for the Safety of Life
at Sea
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Convention_for_the_Safety_of_Life_at_Sea>
(SOLAS)
mandated certain classes of vessels must carry navtex, beginning August 1,
1993."

For coastal areas the tsunami warnings on NAVTEX may be useful, although
they go out on radio of course. (My experience in that regard from SF
emergency services, is that a tsunami warning leads to everyone calling
everyone, thus blocking both the cell system and the landline phones. At
OES we always suspected that the calls were often people saying to their
friends: "Hey, a TIDAL WAVE is coming, let's go down to the beach and watch
it!")

I thought NAVTEX on 518 KHz might provide propagation beacons for 630m. I
sometimes get Alaska here in SF. The schedules are available on-line.

73 de Bart, K6VK (FCC GROL) ##

-- --
Bart Lee,
​K6VK, CHRS, AWA, ARRL​

Attorney at Law

Cell Phone 415 902 7168

www.bartlee.com
<http://www.LawForHams.com>


On Wed, Aug 16, 2017 at 10:00 AM, <600mrg-request at w7ekb.com> wrote:

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>    1. NAVTEX (Frank Lotito)
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> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2017 01:27:22 +0000
> From: Frank Lotito <k3dz at live.com>
> To: 600 / 630 meter research group <600mrg at w7ekb.com>
> Subject: [600MRG] NAVTEX
> Message-ID:
>         <DM5PR13MB08893848D6FFAD0F9C0B1E87E5BB0 at DM5PR13MB0889.
> namprd13.prod.outlook.com>
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> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> ref:  http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/marine/navtex.htm
>
> My question - What is the practical value of NAVTEX to the maritime
> community in this day and age?  If I were a US or Canadian mariner, be it
> pleasure boat or commercial, and I was traversing the large inland water
> ways (e.g. Great Lakes) or coastal water ways, I would favor using weather
> and marine hazard broadcasts applicable to my immediate geographic area
> with high reliability, and available and up-to-date on a "24/7 basis."
>
> What am I missing?
>
> 73 Frank Lotito  K3DZ / WH2XHA
>
>
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> End of 600MRG Digest, Vol 76, Issue 9
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