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Does anybody know if there are any marine operators still around? Mainly looking for lake Michigan area, but I figured with the use of cell phones, most of these channels are pretty quiet.
Marine Operators channel
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ecps92
Member
With the Cellphones, many have gone and turned those frequencies over to Sea-Tow and the other Maritime AAA for use as an "Automated Radio Check" channel.
QwKiE
Member
all the same frequencies are used
Marine freqs are still used all over the world there is call in points all over the great lakes for the freighters. That makes a lota calls from freighters to land spots this link is in the Erie, Detroit river, lake St Claire, and lake Huron.
Detroit and St. Clair Rivers Calling-In-Points -Boatnerd.com
I am sure if you search you will find for lake Michigan the call in points. go in to the RR for finding the freqs used for Marine and just use them in your scanner.
Marine freqs are still used all over the world there is call in points all over the great lakes for the freighters. That makes a lota calls from freighters to land spots this link is in the Erie, Detroit river, lake St Claire, and lake Huron.
Detroit and St. Clair Rivers Calling-In-Points -Boatnerd.com
I am sure if you search you will find for lake Michigan the call in points. go in to the RR for finding the freqs used for Marine and just use them in your scanner.
QwKiE
Member
ecps92
Member
The discussion was about the old Marine Operator channels who ran the old Phone Patch for Ship-Shore Telephone Traffic.
Maybe this site would help ?
ShipCom is the United States only 24 hour provider of HF SSB radiotelephone and VHF radiotelephone Ship to Shore voice service.
HF SSB Radiotelephone Voice, Email, Fax, Satellite Marine Messages,
Telegrams, VHF Radiotelephone, Telex Sitor & Marine Weather Services
http://shipcom.com/
http://shipcom.com/services.html
http://shipcom.com/frequencies.html
ShipCom is the United States only 24 hour provider of HF SSB radiotelephone and VHF radiotelephone Ship to Shore voice service.
HF SSB Radiotelephone Voice, Email, Fax, Satellite Marine Messages,
Telegrams, VHF Radiotelephone, Telex Sitor & Marine Weather Services
http://shipcom.com/
http://shipcom.com/services.html
http://shipcom.com/frequencies.html
RKG
Member
At one time, there were three classes of "marine operator" services.
The VHF service, operated by the local telephone company, operated on one or more of the "public correspondence" channels of the VHF Marine Channel Plan: 24-28 and 84-87. As Bill noted, these went away in the mid-90s or so, on account of the popular deployment of cellular telephones.
The "Harbor" service, which operated on a couple of 2 MHz MF duplex channels, was more or less a legacy of the old double-sideband marine radio. These were largely gone by the early 1980s, since the then-new marine VHF service had better audio and pretty much the same range.
Then there was the "High Seas" service, which operated on a bunch of ITU HF duplex channel pairs. The beauty of HF is that there are, in fact, several bands: 4 MHz, 6 MHz, 8 MHz, 12 MHz, 16 MHz and 22 MHz. Depending on the time of day, time of the year, time of the sunspot cycle, and a few other factors, range could be inter-continental. (I once spoke VIS, the High Seas service in Sydney, Australia, from Buzzards Bay, on 12 MHz in the early morning.)
In the U.S., there were four High Seas operations. WOO, WOM and KMI were all operated by AT&T. WOM would easily carry a vessel all the way across the Atlantic to Europe, while KMI covered a huge section of the Pacific. The fourth service was WLO, in Mobile, Alabama, which today operates unter the "ShipCom" brand. AT&T took down its High Seas service maybe 10 or 12 years ago, largely because vessels venturing far enough off shore to value this service were switching to satellite based systems, the cost of which (both infrastructure and toll) came tumbling down.
The VHF service, operated by the local telephone company, operated on one or more of the "public correspondence" channels of the VHF Marine Channel Plan: 24-28 and 84-87. As Bill noted, these went away in the mid-90s or so, on account of the popular deployment of cellular telephones.
The "Harbor" service, which operated on a couple of 2 MHz MF duplex channels, was more or less a legacy of the old double-sideband marine radio. These were largely gone by the early 1980s, since the then-new marine VHF service had better audio and pretty much the same range.
Then there was the "High Seas" service, which operated on a bunch of ITU HF duplex channel pairs. The beauty of HF is that there are, in fact, several bands: 4 MHz, 6 MHz, 8 MHz, 12 MHz, 16 MHz and 22 MHz. Depending on the time of day, time of the year, time of the sunspot cycle, and a few other factors, range could be inter-continental. (I once spoke VIS, the High Seas service in Sydney, Australia, from Buzzards Bay, on 12 MHz in the early morning.)
In the U.S., there were four High Seas operations. WOO, WOM and KMI were all operated by AT&T. WOM would easily carry a vessel all the way across the Atlantic to Europe, while KMI covered a huge section of the Pacific. The fourth service was WLO, in Mobile, Alabama, which today operates unter the "ShipCom" brand. AT&T took down its High Seas service maybe 10 or 12 years ago, largely because vessels venturing far enough off shore to value this service were switching to satellite based systems, the cost of which (both infrastructure and toll) came tumbling down.
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Thanks for all the info guys, I remember about 10-15 years ago I heard someone place a call in the Milwaukee area. I though it was the coolest thing ever... but from what I gathered, those days are long gone. At least around here.
As the former owner of a network (Georgia, Florida, Keys, and Gulf Coast) of Marine Operator stations, I saw the trend in the industry (as well as land mobile and radio paging) going to cellular, I sold all of those licenses and headed to the middle of nowhere Tennessee.
Not much activity on Marine frequencies here, except for the occasional "Notice to Mariners" by the Coast Guard on the Ohio River.
biomedbob
kf4br
Not much activity on Marine frequencies here, except for the occasional "Notice to Mariners" by the Coast Guard on the Ohio River.
biomedbob
kf4br
RIVERSMVP09
Member
from where I lived I could hear the San Pedro marine Operator all the way to 2004.
Reading this thread was a great trip down Memory Lane. I remember as a kid spending my summers on Lake Erie hear the Erie Marine Operator. I would always switch over to listen to the conversations. We never used the service as we had access to a VHF radio at our house on the shore.
Use to be WFN where I worked, we ran a lot of phone calls, 4 of us on day shift, but all tumbled down when the cellular phone came into the marker, the station closed around 1998 or 1999.
I remember hearing ROGER CITY MICHIGAN marine, but know they closed to, also ST. LOUIS RADIO very active but closed also.
Only stations I hear now is the US COAST GUARD on chnl 16, and maybe a boater or two during the week around LOUISVILLE, KY.
DOCTOR
I remember hearing ROGER CITY MICHIGAN marine, but know they closed to, also ST. LOUIS RADIO very active but closed also.
Only stations I hear now is the US COAST GUARD on chnl 16, and maybe a boater or two during the week around LOUISVILLE, KY.
DOCTOR
Darth_vader
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http://maritelusa.com/
The local Maritel service out of Portland was on channel 26, KOE815. Occasionally the shore transmitter would play a recording saying "this is KOE815, Maritel marine operator located in Portland, Oregon. Ready to place your call on channel two six." So then to actually get the system's attention you'd key up briefly to get the prompt, "this is KOE815, Maritel marine operator located at Portland, Oregon. To place a call please key your microphone for an additional five seconds now."
At that point you'd key up for a few more seconds and the operator (don't know where their switching office was) would come on the air and set the call up. When monitoring the shore channel, one would always hear a ~60 pulse-per-minute 1000 Hz tone in the same cadence as the busy signal on the landline, when the ship side was keyed up, so basically you'd end up only hearing one side of the conversation. (But don't bother asking me what I had for breakfast this morning.)
I guess they're still in business and it must still be on 26, but I haven't heard anybody using it in a very long time. Maybe I should kerchunk it one of these days and see, out of curiosity.
Looks like they have coverage around Lake Michigan, though: http://maritelusa.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/LicensedArea-660x370.jpg
The local Maritel service out of Portland was on channel 26, KOE815. Occasionally the shore transmitter would play a recording saying "this is KOE815, Maritel marine operator located in Portland, Oregon. Ready to place your call on channel two six." So then to actually get the system's attention you'd key up briefly to get the prompt, "this is KOE815, Maritel marine operator located at Portland, Oregon. To place a call please key your microphone for an additional five seconds now."
At that point you'd key up for a few more seconds and the operator (don't know where their switching office was) would come on the air and set the call up. When monitoring the shore channel, one would always hear a ~60 pulse-per-minute 1000 Hz tone in the same cadence as the busy signal on the landline, when the ship side was keyed up, so basically you'd end up only hearing one side of the conversation. (But don't bother asking me what I had for breakfast this morning.)
I guess they're still in business and it must still be on 26, but I haven't heard anybody using it in a very long time. Maybe I should kerchunk it one of these days and see, out of curiosity.
Looks like they have coverage around Lake Michigan, though: http://maritelusa.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/LicensedArea-660x370.jpg
That's awesome!!
That's cool, I also noticed that they have coverage in my area too. But I have never heard anything like that in my area on the marine freqs.
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