Dear Coast Guard, You Do Know They Can’t Hear You, Right?

A Brief Memo to Watchstanders

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The author is a retired telecom/satcom professional who cruises the East Coast with his wife Louise aboard a 52-foot steel trawler yacht named Vector. He is Loose Cannon’s go-to guy in matters of regulations and best practices.

By SEAN WELSH

Dear U.S. Coast Guard radio watchstanders:

Getting on Channel 16 when there is an open mic, to announce that there is an open mic, and to ask mariners to check their equipment, basically does nothing except add clutter to the channel, something you would be yelling at us for doing.

The reason is simple, and really ought to be taught in radio watchstander school, if it’s not already: The radio with the open mic—the one radio you are trying to talk to—cannot and will not hear your announcement. When the microphone transmit button is pressed, the radio can no longer receive transmissions from other stations.

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Yes, yes, there is a minuscule chance that the vessel with the open mic actually has more than one radio, and one of the other radios is tuned to 16, and someone somewhere on that vessel will hear your plea, make their way to the bridge or wherever the offending radio is, and do something about it.

Or perhaps the vessel with the open mic is actually in a marina, and within earshot of another boat with a radio that is on, and they will hear your call.

But both of these scenarios have a likelihood that is vanishingly small. When most of us hear people making open-mic announcements, we think “does this person not know how radios work?” When it’s the Coast Guard doing it, we wonder about standards of training.

FWIW.