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. 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 FR 31213 , Sept. 2, 1986, as amended at  56 FR 57988 , Nov. 15, 1991;  68 FR 46961 , Aug. 7, 2003]