Sec. 80.1119  Receipt and acknowledgement of distress alerts by coast 
          stations and coast earth stations.

    (a) Coast stations that receive a distress alert should defer 
acknowledgement for a short interval so that receipt may be acknowledged 
by a Rescue Coordination Center. Where an acknowledgement is not 
forthcoming within 3 minutes, the coast station in receipt of distress 
alerts must ensure that they are routed to a Rescue Coordination Center 
as soon as possible. Coast stations must provide assistance for distress 
communications when requested to do so by the U.S. Coast Guard. (This 
subpart does not specify any radio watches for coast stations.)
    (b) Coast earth stations in receipt of distress alerts must ensure 
that they are routed as soon as possible to a Rescue Coordination 
Center. Coast earth stations must relay, as soon as possible, an 
acknowledgement of a distress alert from a Rescue Coordination Center.
    (c) Certain messages must be carried without charge, regardless of 
the means by which they are transmitted:

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    (1) Distress alert messages;
    (2) Search and rescue coordination messages;
    (3) Medical assistance messages where an imminent danger to life is 
present, or
    (4) Urgent meteorological or navigational danger messages passed in 
the ship-to-shore direction.