On Thu, 5 Sep 2013, rickman wrote:


It seems very restrictive that anyone can use a marine VHF radio on their
boat, but if they want to speak with someone on shore that is not allowed
except for special cases like drawbridge operators. I can understand that
marine radios are not for shore to shore communications, but it only seems
natural to use the same radio for ship to ship and ship to shore comms.

The magic reasoning is that if you're on a boat or ship, then you are on
the water, and the marine band would then apply. You may need it for
emergency, or talking to other boats. I'm sure you used to have to be
licensed in order to have a Marine band license, so things have changed.
Indeed, it was only about the late sixties that the VHF Marine band came
into existence, before that you had to use the 2 to 3MHz Marine band, with
much longer antennas and I think more serious licensing requirements. The
VHF Marine band gave a lot more boaters the use of radio, and some of
that was because in putting the band at higher frequencies, the range
was limited, so more people could make use of the allocation. And about
that time, the equipment on the HF marine band got fancier and more
expensive, precisely to make better use of that allocation.

But, if anyone could get a marine band radio and use it from shore, what's
to keep them from just using it as a general radio band? The allocation
is for marine use, yet if anyone could use a radio for the band from
shore, then they might use it for any purpose.

That's the difference, it's now easy to use the radio from a boat, where
the band is intended for, and difficult to use from shore since you need
to justify that you actually will be using it for ship to shore use.

There is every need for a boat to have a radio, no need for everyone on
shore to have a radio, so the licensing is restrictive. Likely not as
restrictive as you perceive it, but still there to weed out the people who
might wish to use it for other things.

Michael