Herb,
I agree that one should obey the rules but you should not chastize all users
because of the offenses of some.
I used to cruise in the Bahamas in the late 1980's. The incidence of illegial
opertion witnessed by me was rather low. You infer that "so many are not even
legally licensed". Maybe the percentage went up but I am suprised this is so
with the advent of satellite services.
The subject of the original post concerned the Legality of Circumventing
Commercial Maritime ISP Services by using Amamteur radio. The offenses you
mention are in territorial waters. You cannot use Amateur radio in territorial
waters unless you have a reciprocal license from that country. Is it legal to
use Commerical Maritime ISP Services in territorial waters? I believe you have
to use local land or cellular based services for communications from thes
waters.
Mike N2MS
----- Original Message -----
From: Herbert Schonbohm <herbert.schoenbohm@gmail.com>
To: topband@contesting.com
Sent: Sun, 16 Mar 2014 21:48:08 -0000 (UTC)
Subject: Re: Topband: Legality of Circumventing Commercial Maritime ISP
Services??
Mike,
The issue with "cruisers" using the ham bands is that so many are not
even legally licensed or if they are have no permit to operate in the
ports and harbors where they are visiting. Most of the islands in the
Eastern Caribbean do not permit third party traffic of any kind. So the
cruiser scofflaws falsely claim they are "Micky Mouse" to avoid
suspicion. Across the Caribbean island you can leave the territorial
waters of one country and cross into the territorial waters of another.
When you hear amateurs in the states running a marine radio service on
any band you normally hear a litany of illegal practices. Just listen
to the content of the phone patches and you will quickly see this is true.
When you follow the narrative on the link below you see that EL0BF is
not a valid amateur license but rather a pirate call. This raises
another issue as the sale boat "Fiesty Lady" is a U.S. Registered vessel
under the flag and laws of the U.S. The mere idea of just self
assigning an amateur sounding call for your sailing experiences is
wrong. But in this case we have someone who is not by his own admission
in immediate danger but rather chooses to use amateur radio as his
communications for a trans-Atlantic crossing. This not only places him
in peril for not having the proper communications equipment for such a
journey but deprives him of a vast world wide system of marine
communications on frequencies that are monitor by other boats that may
be only a hour away. IMHO amateur respecting their hobby must not be
enablers of this nonsense.
Regards,
Herb Schoenbohm, KV4FZ
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