[aprssig] "Emergency!" test convention?

KC2MMi kc2mmi at verizon.net
Wed Jul 21 17:32:46 EDT 2004


<Somewhere in Part 97 you will find blurbs about properly identifying
emergency transmissions.  That is all that is required here.  No different
than identifying your tranmsmissions during the SET as TEST transmissions.

The more I think about this proposed quiet time, the more I cringe.>

Danny, I understand the cringe and agree with it. On the other hand, there
is no way you can "identify" the Mic-E "Emergency!" parameter, except by
sending a "Please ignore, testing" message in the body of it. And of course
the simple act of doing that, means changing the setup to some extent
anyway.

Is the better option to simply identify the transmission with a "testing, go
back to sleep" message payload? Which will still raise false alarms all the
time?

I suppose you could try to argue "§97.111 Authorized transmissions. ...(b)
In addition to one-way transmissions specifically
authorized elsewhere in this Part, an amateur station may transmit the
following types of one-way communications: (1) Brief transmissions necessary
to make adjustments to the station; " as authorization for the "necessary"
testing and adjustment of the station, but that's really pushing things. I
found no mention of the phrase "emergency transmissions" at all.

IIRC the USCG and international marine policies allowed for this on at least
one distress channel, maybe the VHF ELT channel used for aviation? (Anyone
remember?) Again, the simple intention is that you can't really test
equipment--unless you use it "as is" with no mods.





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