11th meeting of WG FM PT46 - Tallinn

The 11th meeting of project team (PT) 46 of the Frequency Management working group (WG FM) was held last 20-22 September in Tallinn, Estonia, chaired by Jaap Steenge of the Netherlands. PT46 mainly focuses on issues concerning maritime mobile service and maritime radionavigation; its activity is reported to WG FM.

Various issues were dealt with in this working meeting, of which the following stand out:

• Start of work to update existing information on administrative procedures for PLBs (personal locator beacons) in CEPT administrations, to obtain as wide a view as possible within CEPT and propose an eventual harmonisation;
   
• Follow-up of issues in the scope of ITU-R WP 5B, specifically updating of recommendation ITU-R 585-5 on allocation of MMSI (maritime mobile service identity), where specific identifications will be introduced for:

- Portable VHF equipment with DSC and GNSS in the maritime environment;

- AIS-SART, MOB-Man Overboard Alert Systems and EPIRB-AIS equipment and similar equipment that require identification;

Also, regarding MOB, a proposal for operational procedures to be submitted to the next WP 5B is being drawn up.

• Following the identification of several instances of interference in the 6 MHz band (6215 kHz and 6312 kHz assistance frequencies) caused by ‘pirate radios’ during the automatic monitoring of maritime bands, the monitoring of some 2, 4 and 8 MHz bands was requested. Analysis of the results obtained has begun so that an action proposal can be submitted;
   
• Study concerning the registration, certification and use of EPIRB (emergency position-indicating radio beacons) in the CEPT scope. After analysing information from the different administrations it was concluded that most require a certificate at the minimum SRC (short range certificate) level for sole use of EPIRB (with no radio telephone equipment installed on board);
   
• Maintenance of ERC Rec T/R 32-03 on frequencies to be used by on-board communication stations, and analysis of the possibility of suppressing ERC/REC 31-06 on the harmonised content of certificates issued by administrations for the GOC and ROC to facilitate the mutual recognition of these certificates.