"Doug Dotson" wrote in
:


Why is it that USCG "monitored" frequencies are not reliable at these
distances, but ham frequencies are pretty reliable. 4125 is just a bit
above the 80m ham band. I can talk to Australia, Africa, Europe and
Asia fairly reliably.

I think the bottom line is that for whatever reason, the USCG and
USCGA do not do a very good job of monitoring the frequencies that
they claim to. Hams are always on the air somewhere, getting a ham
license is the best insurance for one's safety.

Doug, k3qt
s/v Callista



While the mechanic in Daytona Beach was working over the Pickled Perkins in
Lionheart's bilge, they were astonished to listen to the emergency comms
handled by the hams on 14.300 MMSN for a Honduran fishing boat captain who
had a crew fight aboard where one guy had a knife stuck into his back 7
inches and needed meds, bad. A VE3, who is one of the net's controllers,
was the contact station with USCG who never showed up on 14.300, at all, to
help or take charge of the situation. The hams were alone handling it.
The boat was doing 7 knots headed towards Honduras from about halfway to
Jamaica.

USCG got in touch through some kind of channels with Honduras Air Force
who, eventually, got in touch with the captain of the vessel on VHF several
hours later. A fast boat was dispatched and I heard the hams say they had
heard from the fishing boat captain that the guy had survived the attack
and was safely in a Honduran hospital.

Wonder why CG couldn't get $400M in HF gear I paid for tuned up on 14.300
to talk to the captain, directly? Most interesting. I know their gear
will run on the ham bands because I...er, ah...."operated" on 20 meters
from NMN's great 10KW Harris transmitters into big cone verticals when I
cal'd their test equipment back in the 80's. The transmitters and antenna
systems there can come up on any old frequency you like with serious power.

Larry (No, I didn't run 10KW on 20 meters, but the temptation was
overwhelming!)