Delaware River Pilots

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jaymatt1978

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Cape May,NJ
NBeen hearing them a lot on Channel 14-- 156.7000/ lately, say the past four months. Strong into Cape May. Was wondering if t his is a new thing? Seem I can't figure out the exact location
 

kennyloatman

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I have been listing to them for years, maybe as far back as 2008, They seem to board ships from other countries and pilot them into Delaware river ports. I have seem some of there boats in the Philadelphia area but I don't know where they based. You can always hear them telling the ship captains to put over a rope ladder 6 meters above the water line for boarding.
 

TerryPavlick

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Wallingford PA Villas NJ
Here are two web sites



Depending on your location - you can hear the Philadelphia Maritime Exchange office on Channel 14 156.700 or the Lewes Pilot Tower.

What you have been hearing is the Lewes Pilot Tower (a picture of it shows up first when you open the web site of the Maritime Exchange). They have a schedule of ship arrivals and departures through the Maritime Exchange and begin to communicate with inbound ships coming up the sea lanes to the bay entrance. The pilot boat is usually dispatched to place the pilot on the inbound ship around a buoy in the area between the Delaware Bay entrance and the Atlantic Ocean.
78869 This is one of the pictures I found with a google search. The Lewes pilot tower is located in Cape Henlopen State Park in Delaware.

The radio signal strength from the tower does change - I think they keep it on low power and then switch to high power when the ship has difficulty hearing them. So the times you are listening may have just been a high power time (if this is the first time you are hearing them).

I hear the tower routinely from my Villas NJ location and occasionally can hear the Philadelphia office as well. Here are the licenses as displayed from Radio Reference for Sussex County Delaware

788707887178872

The pilot tower usually identifies itself as WHW819 over the radio on channel 16 and channel 14 when talking to ships or even the USCG. Another interesting function that the tower performs is calling ships that are within the North Atlantic Right Whale Transit Zone. When the monitor a ship on AIS exceedng the 10 knot speed limit - they contact the ship and advise them to slow down and the reason why.

the area near the mouth of the bay is marked below (I circled it in blue)
78873

The website for more details is found here


Hope this helps and gives you some good reading information.

Terry
Villas NJ
 

trentbob

W3BUX- Bucks County, PA
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I am on the Delaware right by the Burlington-Bristol Bridge and I regularly listen to channel 14, The Maritime Exchange. 24-hour Channel that seems to log and keep track of the large Ships coming and going on the Delaware

Ships Come regularly out past me to the port at USS Steel. If a captain is not qualified on the river then they are required to have a pilot. The name McAllister comes to mind and a lot of the tugs I see going up and down the Delaware through Bristol have the M on the smokestack.
 
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