Federal Communications Commission § 80.319

§ 80.314 Distress communications. as practicable over a period of approxi- (a) The international radiotelephone mately one minute. The purpose of this distress signal consists of the word special signal is to attract the atten- , pronounced as the French tion of the person on watch or to actu- expression ‘‘m’aider’’. ate automatic devices giving the (b) These distress signals indicate alarm. that a mobile station is threatened by § 80.318 Use of alarm signals. grave and imminent danger and re- quests immediate assistance. (a) The radiotelegraph or - (c) The radiotelephone distress call telephone alarm signal, as appropriate, consists of: must only be used to announce: (1) The distress signal MAYDAY spo- (1) That a distress call or message is ken three times; about to follow; (2) The words THIS IS; (2) The transmission of an urgent cy- (3) The (or name, if no call clone warning. In this case the alarm sign assigned) of the mobile station in signal may only be used by coast sta- distress, spoken three times; tions authorized by the Commission to (4) Particulars of the station’s posi- do so; or tion; (3) The loss of a person or persons (5) The nature of the distress; overboard. In this case the alarm sig- (6) The kind of assistance desired; nal may only be used when the assist- and ance of other ships is required and can- (7) Any other information which not be satisfactorily obtained by the might facilitate rescue, for example, use of the urgency signal only, but the the length, color, and type of vessel, or alarm signal must not be repeated by number of persons on board. other stations. The message must be (d) The procedures for canceling false preceded by the urgency signal. distress alerts are contained in § 80.335. (b) In cases described in paragraphs [51 FR 31213, Sept. 2, 1986, as amended at 68 (a)(2) and (3) of this section, the trans- FR 46968, Aug. 7, 2003; 73 FR 4485, Jan. 25, mission of the warning or message by 2008] radiotelegraphy must not begin until two minutes after the end of the radio- § 80.317 Radiotelegraph and radio- telegraph alarm signal. telephone alarm signals. (a) The international radiotelegraph § 80.319 Radiotelegraph distress call alarm signal consists of a series of and message transmission proce- twelve dashes sent in one minute, the dure. duration of each dash being four sec- (a) The radiotelegraph distress proce- onds and the duration of the interval dure consists of the following six steps: between consecutive dashes one second. however, when time is vital, the first The purpose of this special signal is the and second steps may be omitted. actuation of automatic devices giving These two steps of the distress proce- the alarm to attract the attention of dure may also be omitted in cir- the operator when there is no listening cumstances when transmission of the watch on the distress frequency. alarm signal is considered unnecessary: (b) The international radiotelephone (1) The radiotelegraph alarm signal; alarm signal consists of two substan- (2) The distress call and an interval tially sinusoidal audio frequency tones of two minutes; transmitted alternately. One tone (3) The distress call; must have a frequency of 2200 Hertz (4) The distress message; and the other a frequency of 1300 Hertz, (5) Two dashes of ten to fifteen sec- the duration of each tone being 250 mil- onds each; liseconds. When generated by auto- (6) The call sign of the mobile station matic means, the radiotelephone alarm in distress. signal must be transmitted continu- (b) The radiotelegraph distress trans- ously for a period of at least 30 seconds, missions must be sent by means of the but not exceeding one minute; when international at a speed not generated by other means, the signal exceeding 16 words per minute nor less must be transmitted as continuously than 8 words per minute.

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