Thought id share with everyone that today I had to call the Coast Guard to report something and I had tried to raise them to get a land line number so I wouldn’t tie up the radio and when I called the Hampton Roads Sector in Virginia answered, mind you im in the Calvert County side of the bay near North Beach. Just thought it was weird I got them verses Baltimore or Annapolis. Then I heard Ocean City lol. Guess they operate off of cell towers? Anyone know how that works?
Chris what you heard was the Rescue 21 system. If you and other don't know what it is it is the new Radio System of the Coast Guard. The National Distress and Response System (NDRS) the Coast Guard has used for Search and Rescue, Communications and Information was outdated and obsolete. Meaning there was little resource to repair equipment within the system due to outdated parts. The NDRS was installed and deployed during the 1970s and has done it's time until it was reconized that the Coast Guard needed an new and upgraded system which formally came to be Rescue 21 which has many capabilities such as new command, control and communications technology consisting of Direction- find capabilities, further range of nautical miles such as the new system will go out to 20 nautical miles per 1 watt with a 2 meter per height. Multiple/Simitanselously channel use. Meaning they can use a channel while transmitting and even recieve incoming call at same time. Also helps with Interoperability to Federal, State and Local agencies. Rescue 21 also consist of Project 21 Digital Communications with all U.S. and Federal, State, Local law enforcement via VHF and UHF and 800mhz. It is a huge system and has saved countless lives since been online. Eastern Shores, Md was the first site of the new system and the system will be replacing the legacy distress radio system and all consoles within the U.S. Coast Guard stations, sectors and groups.
It also requires many many Radio towers. Some of them do consist of Cell towers but most of private owned by the U.S. Coast Guard. What these Towers do is increase the range of communications and also helps with the direction finder capabilities and lets them pinpoint a close proximity of where the mayday was hailed from. It will make closer and small search areas instead of the Coast Guard using landmarks as a way to find the distressed boater.
Example your out 30 miles of Fire Island in NY your taking on water, you call for a mayday you don't know where you are and don't have exact long. and latitude of your location and so what happens is Sector Long Island Sound with lets say Rescue 21 at Deleware Bay or even Hampton Roads recieves your mayday what it does is that the towers they received your maydays will make a crosshair/cross eachother to pin point an area of the transmission. That's the new Rescue 21
here's a few links i'll give you to show what it is and the towers are used for.
http://www.mvtimes.com/pdfs/chilmark/coast-guard-rescue-21.pdf
USCG: Rescue 21
