Today’s Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (GMDSS) regulations requires that every ship carry old-school HF radiotelephone and radiotelex equipment but, traditional radio is rarely used aboard ship. The problem...

Thrane & Thrane has expanded its established workboat and fishing vessel VHF radio portfolio with the launch of the new SAILOR 6217 VHF DSC Class D AIS Receiver. The new...

The Canadian Coast Guard has announced a plan to modernizing twelve Marine Communications and Traffic Centres across the country with state-of-the-art technology to ensure the uninterrupted communication and traffic services...

Inmarsat has announced a new capability that will allow up to nine simultaneous telephone calls to be made through a single FleetBroadband terminal. “FleetBroadband Multi-voice is a unique integrated solution...

Wikipedia tells us “The IMO number is made of the three letters ‘IMO’followed by the seven-digit number assigned to all ships by IHS Fairplay when constructed. This is a unique seven digit number that is...

With the crowded nature of the GMDSS / Emergency Signaling market, does the maritime world really need another manufacturer? I’ll leave that question for you to fight over in the...

In past articles gCaptain contributor Mario Vittone has clearly illustrated the importance of flares in finding vessels in distress. And having nineteen years of combined military service in the U.S....

Can you get a satellite phone cheaper than AT&T or Verizon? No but at $20 per month Globalstar is offering an unlimited airtime call plan for new customers. A plan...

Most of our readers are familiar with Search And Rescue Transponders, those devices that look similar to EPIRBs that, when interrogated by X-band radar, produce a line of dots on...

gCaptain has long been a fan of the idea behind SPOT’s personal locator devices but gCaptain readers have pointed out a major concern, a SPOT it is not a PLB...

AIS has been a revolutionary product and, regardless of your opinion on its use, has changed the way mates handle heavy traffic situations. Jotron, makers of various SOLAS compliant marine...

The first RADIO DISTRESS SIGNAL was transmitted from the East Goodwin Lightship on 17 March 1899 when the merchant vessel Elbe ran aground on the Goodwin Sands. The message was...

Kongsberg Simrad announced a partnership with Norway to bring Automatic Identification System, AIS, ship tracking beyond its current line of sight (approximately 40 mile) range. With a target date of 2009...

A few months ago we received a press release from McMurdo on a revolutionary product, the Fast-Find 210 PLB, a portable version of an EPIRB, The revolutionary part was not...

We have already seen how the Red Cross and United States Coast Guard has successfully implemented Twitter in their effort to dissimenate information and update participants during times of emergency....

Here at gCaptain many of our readers browse the site via slow shipboard internet connections so we spend a considerable amount of time attempting to make the site bandwidth friendly....

Most of you probably already know that starting in February 2009, over-the-air television broadcasts will be going digital in the United States. This means that if you want to continue...

The SPOT Contest is now closed, but you can keep commenting as if it were open.  Thank you everyone for your participation.  We will have the winners announced shortly! gCaptain...

I stumbled upon this post while doing research for our EPIRB Failure series. It’s new distress system developed by researchers at John Hopkins University. Basically the unit is mounted with...

  USCG Press Release 7 Feb 2008: Last April the Coast Guard asked for public comment on the need to continue broadcasting high frequency (HF) high seas weather forecasts for...