Local contact and Safety and Safe Boater tips

Standard Radio Urgency Calls

Mayday - Indicated that a ship, aircraft, or other vehicle is threatened by grave and imminent danger.

S-O-S - Short for Save our Ship. SOS is typically transmitted via morse code as three short, three long and three short sounds.

International Morse code is composed of five elements - short mark, dot or "dit" (·) — "dot duration" is one time unit long longer mark, dash or "dah" (–) — three time units long inter-element gap between the dots and dashes within a character — one dot duration or one unit longshort gap (between letters) — three time units longmedium gap (between words) — seven time units long

VHF Radio Alarm signal - consists of two audible tomes at different frequencies, set alternately to produce a "warbling" sound. Used to attract attention of other listeners and also to activate automatic listening devices.

PAN-PAN - Indicates an urgent message concerning the safety of a ship, aircraft or vehicle or the safety of a person. This is initiated by the Coast Guard.

Securite - Indicates a message concerning the safety of navigation or important weather warnings. 

EPIRB - Short for "Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacons" The se devices are carried on  vessels to give a distress alert in event of distress.

Two types of there EPIRB's

VHF at 121.5 MHz - gives your position accurately up to 15 miles.

UHF at 406 MHz - these transmit a signal with a unique beacon identifier which is matched with owner registration. These generate a position accurately within a 3 nautical mile range and also have a 121.5 MHz homing signal.

Both of these EPIRB's are available for manual or automatic activation.