Other Marine Radio & Satellite Services

• Coastal and Inland Waters Marine Telephone Service operates by marine radio in the 2 MHz and VHF band. It is used by ships.
• High Seas Marine Telephone Service: This service provides communications to ships a great distance from shore and is available only through the Vancouver (VAI) station in Canada. Small craft are making increasing use of this service. With careful frequency selection, it is possible to communicate over great distances.
• CCG NAVTEX Service: NAVigational TeleX service uses 518 kHz on a time shared basis for the broadcast of weather and navigational information, weather warnings, ice reports, SAR reports, messages and DGPS notices, current changes to navigational aids. It is part of the GMDSS. It is rarely found on pleasure craft. The receivers decode the digital messages and stores them in memory and be read at your convenience (or stored on a connected computer). Service is availabele along coastlines of all countries.
• Pollution messages: All vessels are requested to report oil slicks or pollution of any kind to the nearest MCTS (Marine Communications & Traffic Services) Centre.
• RadioMedical Marine Telephone Service: Master of ships may obtain medical advice by call an MCTS Centre and request to be connected to a doctor. The cost of this service is absorbed by the MCTS centre (Marine Communication and Traffic Services).
• Vancouver Island Trunk System is a network of open Amateur radio repeaters for communications in southern B.C.
• Companies offer digitally encoded audio, music (no commercials) that will work up to 200 miles offshore (U.S.). Receiver, antenna and monthly subscription fee are required.
• Morse Code is no longer monitored by the Canadian Coast Guard. It has been replaced by GMDSS.
  THE MORSE CODE
  You can rearrange the letters to get:
  HERE COME DOTS

Satellite Communications Services

• COSPAS-SARSAT will only monitor EPIRBs and other emergency signals on 406 MHz. (121.5 and 243 MHz emergency beacons are no longer be monitored by satellite.) COSPAS-SARSAT is a satellite-based search and rescue system established by the U.S., Russia, Canada, and France to locate emergency radio beacons.
• Satellite phones means you will no longer have to deal with any other country's telephone system when you travel around the world! Motorola's Iridium uses 66 earth-orbiting satellites. Star-gazers will notice brilliant Iridium flashes as they pass overhead from sunlight reflecting off their antennas. They can become brighter than Venus for a few seconds. .
• Starlink offers satellite-based mobile plans for high-speed, low-latency internet service where available around the world. Pause your plan based on your needs.

To apologize for the lack of "ham" radio information I will add my favourite "boat-anchor" cartoon from Andrew M Cohn (andy@gldl.net) whose great cartoons can be found at www.qsl.net/k4adl.