Maritime Radio Course

[BugzyCan]

Not sure if this is the correct place to post this. I am reading through the Maritime Radio Course Student notes book provided by CPS-ECP in Canada.

The communications for VHF radio seem fairly strict, which I understand, but they also seem very serial in nature, and I am wondering what happens if there is ever a large emergency and everyone starts sending out Mayday, Pan-Pan and Securite messages at the same time, such as when (for example) a tidal wave is noticed by multiple ships, followed by many ships in distress/sinking etc.

Is it possible to manage 10 or more ships at the same time using this format?

I know that Mayday communication supplants Pan-Pan, and Pan-Pan supplants Securite messages, but does that mean nobody will hear Securite messages while Pan-Pan and Mayday are in progress?

The VHF setup here seems very limited to me so far.


In addition to this, when there is a Securite message, and it is addressed to All Stations, and the new channel is 06, everyone is supposed to switch to that channel to get the message, which means, unless you have two radios on board, you lose monitoring of channel 16, which seems wrong to me.

[slug]

Mayday

Radio silence

Only those involved in the mayday can communicate
.
All stations on standby and monitoring the mayday communication

[BugzyCan]

So you think if there are 10 Maydays in progress at the same time, that 9 of them have to wait for the first one?

[slug]

MRCC will one by one acknowledge the maydays and give future instructions

These days It’s common in coastal waters for a mayday to be transferred to mobile phone communication to avoid constipating Ch 16 and give access to additional shore operators

[Tillsbury]

Within vhf range, though. Things got a little hectic during the Fastnet 1979 when there were dozens going on, but mostly it works if everyone says only what’s needed.

[JMR]

What about that red button on your vhf radio?

[slug]

Originally Posted by JMR

What about that red button on your vhf radio?

You won’t get much from a “ dumb” mayday . The mayday is logged by MRCC and “investigated “

The majority of maydays are false , accidental

A live mayday with an operator in control receives immediate response