Sec. 80.141  General provisions for ship stations.

    (a) Points of communication. Ship stations and marine utility 
stations on board ships are authorized to communicate with any station 
in the maritime mobile service.
    (b) Service requirements for all ship stations. (1) Each ship 
station must receive and acknowledge all communications which are 
addressed to the ship or to any person on board.
    (2) Every ship, on meeting with any direct danger to the navigation 
of other ships such as ice, a derelict vessel, a tropical storm, 
subfreezing air temperatures associated with gale force winds causing 
severe icing on superstructures, or winds of force 10 or above on the 
Beaufort scale for which no storm warning has been received, must 
transmit related information to ships in the vicinity and to the 
authorities on land unless such action has already been taken by another 
station. All such radio messages must be preceded by the safety signal.
    (3) A ship station may accept communications for retransmission to 
any other station in the maritime mobile service. Whenever such messages 
or communications have been received and acknowledged by a ship station 
for this purpose, that station must retransmit the message as soon as 
possible.
    (c) Service requirements for vessels. Each ship station provided for 
compliance with Part II of Title III of the Communications Act must 
provide a public correspondence service on voyages of more than 24 hours 
for any person who requests the service.
    (1) Compulsory radiotelegraph ships must provide this service during 
the

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hours the radio operator is normally on duty.
    (2) Compulsory radiotelephone ships must provide this service for at 
least four hours daily. The hours must be prominently posted at the 
principal operating location of the station.
    (d) Operating conditions. Effective August 1, 1994, VHF hand-held, 
portable transmitters used while connected to an external power source 
or a ship antenna must be equipped with an automatic timing device that 
deactivates the transmitter and reverts the transmitter to the receive 
mode after an uninterrupted transmission period of five minutes, plus or 
minus 10 percent. Additionally, such transmitters must have a device 
that indicates when the automatic timer has deactivated the transmitter. 
See also Sec. 80.203(c).
[51 1997 FR 31213 , Sept. 2, 1986, as amended at  56 FR 57988 , Nov. 15, 1991]