Deregulated VHF, Ten Years After


It seems impossible that ten years have elapsed since the
Telecommunications Act of 1996 eliminated the licensing requirement for
VHF radios, EBIRPS, and radar transmitters operated by "voluntary"
vessels in the domestic waters of the United States.
"Voluntary" boats are vessels that are not required by law or by
international treaty to carry a radio, but do so anyway. The vast
majority of pleasure boaters in the Pacific NW are not required to
carry a VHF, but there are some excellent reasons that nearly everybody
should have a VHF radio telephone aboard, and in most cases a handheld
backup as well.

Boating rookies have been overheard to say, "I don't need a VHF. I
carry my cell phone everywhere I go." Of course when the rookie gets
into a jamb in the middle of the Strait of Juan de Fuca he or she will
realize that getting in touch with Aunt Harriet in Yakima, calling
Brother Bob in Billings, or even phoning the Coast Guard at Port
Angeles probably won't result in getting assistance very quickly.
Unless there's a life-threatening emergency, the Coast Guard will
normally attempt to find a nearby vessel willing to assist. To do so,
the Coast Guard will employ the technology the rookie will learn he or
she should have had aboard: a VHF radio. Odds are minute that the
imperiled boater will know the number of a cell phone aboard even a
single boat within sight, but most boats with a VHF will be complying
with the protocol to monitor Channel 16.

As useful as VHF can be, careless or malicious misuse of the technology
endangers all of us. Boaters with more than ten years experience on the
water will clearly remember the time when each vessel with a VHF was
required to apply for a FCC license and call letters. An oft-cited
justification for deregulating the service was the theory that
decreased regulation would probably result in more universal use, and
increased use may indeed be a benefit. "Traffic" on the VHF
continues to get goofier and more informal year by year, with bogus
distress calls, long chatty conversations, and obscene remarks
(directed at no specific vessel identified by name) to "Watch your
blankety blank wake!" cluttering up the emergency frequencies. The
bogus "mayday" calls present an obvious problem, and it's easy to
recognize that two boaters chatting on 16 about the salmon bite or the
waitress at the waterfront coffee shop are hogging a frequency that may
be needed, at any moment, for an emergency broadcast. Increasingly
frequent bouts of " rules of the road rage" on the VHF can also
have deadly consequences if boaters begin turning off the VHF radios to
avoid listening to the angry shouting and outraged epithets of some
poor slob in a rocking boat.

With mandatory boater education laws now in effect, there may be reason
to hope the situation will improve. The worst VHF offenders will
certainly include some people who don't know any better, as well as
others who know the rules but choose to amuse themselves by violating
them. Education won't deter the deliberate jerks, but some who might
misuse the radio because they were not familiar with proper procedure
will happily learn the appropriate protocols.

No small amount of confusion prevails regarding the use of VHF by US
vessels in Canadian waters, but according to the FCC website
(wireless.fcc.gov/marine/fstcht 14.html):

(page 3): "If you travel to a foreign port, (e.g. Canada, Mexico,
Bahamas, British Virgin Islands) a license is required. Additionally,
if you travel to a foreign port, you are required to have an operator
permit as described in Section III."

(page 4):
"If you plan to dock in a foreign port (e.g., Canada or the Bahamas)
or if you communicate with foreign coast or shop stations, you must
have a "Restricted Radiotelephone Operator Permit (sometimes referred
to by boaters as an "individual license") in addition to your ship
radio station license....However, if (1) you merely plan to sail in
domestic or international waters without docking in any foreign ports
and without communicating with foreign coast stations, and (2) your
radio operates only on VHF frequencies, you do not need an operator
permit."

According to the FCC, not only do we need a ship's radio station
license but we also need an individual Restricted Radiotelephone
Operator Permit if we plan to dock in any Canadian ports. That would
include most of us who travel north for summer cruising, but I
wouldn't be surprised to discover that few US boats in Canadian
waters are compliant with the ship's station licensing rules or that
very few boaters actually have an additional "individual license"
as the regulations require. Most of us aren't scrambling rescue
services with phony May Day broadcasts, monopolizing the emergency
frequency with chit-chat, or turning the air waves blue with profanity-
but more of us probably need to dig out that old FCC license and check
the expiration date before crossing into Canadian waters. More of us
are probably operating illegally that we realize.