"Larry W4CSC" wrote
"Jack Painter" wrote in
I believe the thread has been dealing only with HF, where a license is
required. I operate under NTIA not FCC so I haven't had that issue
come up...but Larry certainly would on a sail yacht with licensed
equipment. I can say that the equipment is certainly different where
HF is concerned, but not as much fun as pinging your buddy's GPS with
your position and channel on VHF-DSC.

Jack


I was referring to the HF GMDSS system, which goes along with the Icom
M800
HF/SSB rig of this thread, although it does not have GMDSS.....

NOT UNLICENSED VHF....

To operate HF GMDSS aboard your sailboat, a GMDSS OPERATORS license IS
required, no matter what the Waste Marine salesman told you...

Larry, it's a confusing matter, and I don't want in the middle of something
I cannot offer evidence for. So I will just add that when Rick quoted or
refeernced the NavCenter pages, I will caution that we have not done a
bang-up job of maintainng that website. I have had to clairify boater's
questions there about watchstanding before as it is very confusing in some
areas.

Like this (NavCenter)
For MF Radios the watch is maintained on 2182 kHz and for MF-DSC radios on
2187.5 kHz. There are similar requirements that voluntary vessels with
HF-DSC radios and Inmarsat Satellite terminals cruise with the radios turned
on and watching the emergency channels
--
Realize that 5 years after that was published, we STILL don't have a Sea
Area A-2 yet! And we do a somewhat less than credible job of monitoring 2182
from lousy whips antennas at Groups. And where I work, we missed the 2187.5
GMDSS distress call sent by the exploded T/V Bow Mariner some 80 miles away
from our main DSC antenna.. So if it's an FCC rule we are talking about,
then I would recommend avoiding the USCG websites as a source of conclusive
information. We'll try to answer questions about our own rules, not the
FCC's thank you.

Best,

jack