Radio Survey

The International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) is an international maritime agreement which requires Signatory flag states to ensure that ships flagged by them comply with minimum safety standards in construction, equipment and operation. The current version of the SOLAS Convention is the 1974 version, known as SOLAS 1974, which came into force on 25 May 1980. As at March 2016, SOLAS 1974 has 162 contracting States, which flag about 99% of merchant ships around the world in terms of gross tonnage.

Amendments to the 1974 SOLAS Convention concerning radiocommunications for the GMDSS were published in 1989 and entered into force on 1 February 1992. 

All ships over 300 gross tonnage (GRT) on international voyages, and hence subject to the 1974 SOLAS Convention, have been required to comply with the carriage requirements of the GMDSS since 1 February 1999. 

The carriage requirements for ships subject to the SOLAS Convention, or voluntarily GMDSS equipped are contained in Chapter IV of SOLAS with amplifying advice provided in AMSA Marine Order 27 (Radio Equipment) 2009. Some requirements (e.g. for SAR locating devices) are also contained in Chapter III of SOLAS, the International Life-Saving Appliance (LSA) Code, and the High Speed Craft (HSC) Code. For vessels not subject to the SOLAS Convention but are required to be GMDSS ‘compatible’ by Commonwealth legislation the carriage requirements are contained in Appendix 6 AMSA Marine Order 27 (Radio Equipment) 2009. The carriage requirements for both GMDSS compliant and GMDSS compatible ships are designed to ensure the vessel can meet the functional requirements of the GMDSS relevant to that vessel and its operating area/s. 

The Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (GMDSS) is a globally accepted and adopted set of rules protocols and prescriptions, which assure safety navigation and shipping. The GMDSS equipment is applied to increase safety and make it easier and faster to rescue distressed ships, boats and aircrafts. The GMDSS enables a ship in distress to send an alert using various radio systems. Thanks to this system the alerts has a very high contingency to be received by either shore rescue authorities and/or other vessels in the area.

Since the invention of radio at the end of the 19th century, ships at sea have relied on Morse code, invented by Samuel Morse and first used in 1844, for distress and safety telecommunications. But this mean appeared difficult and not reliable enough to assure the safety at sea in full volume.

So the International Maritime Organization (IMO), a United Nations agency specializing in safety of shipping and preventing ships from polluting the seas, began looking at ways of improving maritime distress and safety communications.

A new system, gone to rely on means of satellite and on-land radio services, besides, it has changed international distress notifications from ship-to-ship based to ship-to-shore (Rescue Coordination Center) based. The GMDSS assures capability of vessels of automatically distress alerting and locating for the cases where there is no time to send an SOS or MAYDAY call. And, for the first time, the system requires ships to receive broadcasts of maritime safety information that could prevent a distress, which became a primary target. In 1988, IMO amended the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) Convention, requiring ships subject to it obligatory fit GMDSS equipment. Such ships were required to carry NAVTEX and satellite EPIRBs by August 1, 1993, and had to fit all other GMDSS equipment by February 1, 1999. US ships were allowed to apply GMDSS in lieu of Morse telegraphy equipment by the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

The GMDSS has introduced new technology which has completely transformed maritime radio-communications. The new system enables a distress alert to be transmitted and received automatically over long range, with a signi cantly higher reliability.