"Jack Painter" wrote in
news:7ZAGd.17529$B95.3688@lakeread02:
Two recent cases involved commercial fishing vessels hailing
the USCG on 2182 when they HAD satellite phones on board! Apparently,
these professionals wanted the USCG to answer, not their wives or
friends at the bar.
Best regards,
Jack Painter
Virginia Beach, Virginia
Hmm....not long ago I was monitoring 14.300 Mhz Maritime Mobile Net when a
Nicaraguan captain called in in distress. One of his crew had stuck a 7"
knife in another one of his crew and he had tried all the marine freqs on
his radio to get someone...anyone...to help him. No-go with all that fancy
equipment we buy them. He was about 200 miles from Nicaragua. His radio
worked great because I could hear him plain as day on Lionheart's Icom
M802/AT-130 on the insulated backstay in Charleston, SC, which isn't much
of an antenna in intense noise from a corroded marina electric system.
The ham responded, immediately. An American ham contacted someone in the
State Department who acted as liason with Nicaraguan Air Force to start
things going ashore. A Canadian ham contacted the USCG bureaucrats and
acted as relay station for the boat to get all the usual form-filler-outer
data to them.
I listened for over 2 hours while pouring over a DC wiring nightmare in our
boat. Not ONCE did USCG come on 14.300 Mhz to talk to this fishing boat,
directly, or did any other government bureaucracy in any country. Why? CG
tried to get him to go to one of the marine HF SSB freqs, but he ended up
back on 20 meters after hearing nothing in reply to his calls there on the
same radio. Any CG can commandeer 14.300 for emergencies. Are their
frequency dials stuck?
Anyway, I talked to one of the guys I know on the net the next day in email
and he said Nicaraguan Air Force got a doctor on a boat and met them
offshore to treat the victim while Nicaraguan Police bound and gagged the
perp. The guy lost a lot of blood but survived the attack to fish again.
Damned good thing HAM RADIO was monitoring 14.300 that day.......(c;
AR
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