Goes to show how little the media knows about the maritime industry. It's alway the Titanic. Alway.

Even though modern ships have little in common with the Titanic.

Nobody just ignores a distress beacon. What happen is that for physical reason, a LUT cannot alway resolve the position of a distress beacon transmitting on 121.5 on the first pass ; they might have to wait until the second pass.

In the case of the 406MHz EPIRB, that is not necessary. (There are also other problems with 121.5, and it's being phased out as we speak) My old copy of IMO's The GMDSS Handbook claims 121.5 as being primarily aeronautical, but ships have been equipped with them. (Or a combination, as aircrafts can home in on 121.5 MHz).

I don't know at the time what kind of beacon the ship had... But it's still weird as heck that the crew didn't send a distress message. Fire on board usually deserves at least an urgency message.

I saw an article where, apparently, a nearby ship heard a distress message from the sinking ferry, but the report didn't say much. Still strange that they didn't manage to contact a coast station.

As i understand;

Any emergency warrenting aid or evacuation of any ship any where should send a mayday distress call, or send a mayday call to another ship and have them relay the message.

all it takes is one push of a button and a distress signal can be sent.

a bit worrying how the RAF discovered the distress beacon before the people it was meant for, hms bulwark was dispatched immediatly but theres not much an assualt ship can do over a day away.

Thats why it was it was orderd to turn around.

That and the Egyptian government told them that it was no longer needed.

yup mind you the helo's could have been useful

121.5 is being phased out, which is why RAF Kinloss (On our visit to the ARCC) recommended (If you were a boating person) to use 243 rather than 121.5

I think the idea of 121.5 is for not only aircraft in distress but also for PLBs (Personal Locator Beacons) which all (Including ships) should have a radio tuned into to listen to.

very sad. :cry:

Ships don't keep watch on 121.5 (Not merchant ships, anyway). They keep watch on VHF 16, VHF 70, and a slew of MF/HF channels, but not on 121.5 MHz. Beside, since civillian vessels don't carry DF gears anymore, it'd be pretty pointless to receive an homing signal... Better to get a call from the RCC with the position data :-D

The only mention I've ever seen of a 243 EPIRB listed it as millitary only, but it's an old source, so that might have changed.

And with the COSPAS/SARSAT system, it's very common for a station not directly in the emergency zone to be the first warned. The satellites only work in line-of-sight area, so if a satellites picks up a signal (406 only), it'll keep it in memory until it links up with a LUT again, then downlink it. That's why planes crashing in the Canadian north are detected first by the Russians, since that's where the satellite goes next (Or it's the other way around).

Where's that RAF station, anyway?

I was made to believe that all were on the guard frequency on VHF incase of ejection etc!

Which RAF station? The ARCC? Kinloss

Yeah, where's Kinloss?

The nautical guard frequency, on VHF, is channel 16... 156,08 MHz, if I'm not mistaken, for R/T, and channel 70 (No clue of the frequency, but it's higher than 156,08) for VHF-DSC.

You can't actually call an aircraft's standard radio from a ship's GMDSS station. One of them needs special equipment (Usually, it's the aircraft :-D)

raf kinloss is in scotland about what 6000miles from egypt?

Yes but RAF kilnos moniters all satalites in orbit distress signals get sent to satalites.

on one trip from dartford to zeebrugge i done we had 7 distress calls 4 were in the pacific 1 in the irish sea 2 in the atlantic

http://www.doddy.co.uk/kinlossabbey/...images/map.gif

Miles away from the motherland *shudder* :-?