Inner Harbor Water Taxi

[mondaro]

Hello everyone,

Over the weekend I got in the ear of a water taxi operator at the inner harbor I asked him what marine channel do you monitor in the inner harbor he replied channel 16, I also asked him what channel do
you communicate with other water taxi's and he said they have there own system.

The only antenna on the boat I observed was a rubber duckie type off the roof of the
craft. did an FCC search and came up with nothing does anyone have any ideas what there
using ?

Thanks

Tony

 

[baybum]

In Annapolis they use Ch. 68. So do a million boaters and fishermen out there. It's the CB equivalent of Ch. 19 in the Summer time.
I wish somebody would stream it so I can listen to them while I'm at work.

 

[ka3jjz]

For those that might not know the conversion between channel num and frequency...

Maritime Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference

Mike

 

[baydog]

Most commercial vessels will monitor channels 16 and 13 when underway with 13 being a working channel since channel 16 is reserved as an international hailing and distress channel. .
The Coast Guard has little patience for idle chatter on channel 16.

 

[Gilligan]

I did a business entity search and found that the Baltimore Water Taxi is apparently owned by Harbor Boating Inc. That entity has an FCC license, WPAP343, for a repeater and a low-power (2-watts) simplex channel. The repeater is supposed to be on 464.8625 (469.8625 input) and the simplex channel is on 464.0875. I would give a listen on those frequencies to try to confirm their usage for the water taxis. That would also explain the short, rubber antennas on the boats. My guess would be that the low-power simplex channel could be used for ticketing/gates or possibly as a backup direct-channel in the event of the repeater going out-of-service.

 

[dtscho]

The Water Taxi is using 464.8625:

464.8625 [ ] Water Taxi (DMR - Color Code 8, Slot 1, Group 500, Basic Privacy) (R)

Dave

 

[Gilligan]

Awesome! Fast work of it... too bad it's DMR