The tenth meeting of project team (PT) 46 of the Frequency Management working group (WG FM) was held in Istanbul last 29-31 March, chaired by Jaap Steenge of the Netherlands. PT46 mainly focuses on issues affecting maritime mobile and maritime radionavigation service; its activities are reported to WG FM.
Various matters were covered at this meeting, including the following:
- Continuation of work on the study of administrative procedures for personal locator beacons (PLBs). The first phase of the work has been completed, which involved gathering and processing information supplied by the various CEPT administrations and its posting on the ECO website. The second phase is due to begin and aims to propose a possible harmonisation at the level of CEPT administrations;
- The market appearance of equipment for maritime communications for non-SOLAS and SOLAS vessels that do not comply with the R&TTE Directive. On this subject the results presented by the Norwegian administration were examined, which show that nearly 60 percent of the tested equipment does not comply with the R&TTE Directive. A decision was thus made to present a proposal for action at the next meeting;
- Identification of various interferences in the 6215 kHz and 6312 kHz frequencies (help bands) caused by 'pirate radios' during the automatic monitoring campaign for maritime bands. This matter resulted in production of a proposed liaison statement to send to all administrations, called the “Liaison Statement to CEPT administrations on restricting illegal broadcasting on maritime distress frequencies" to try to eliminate that interference. Another proposed liaison statement was also produced ("Liaison Statement on monitoring in several maritime bands) to send to FM PT22 to request the organisation of an automatic monitoring campaign in some 2.4 and 8 MHz bands;
- Continuation of work on revising ERC DEC(99)01 on the harmonisation of material for the General Operator’s Certificate (GOC) and Restricted Operator's Certificate (ROC) exams;
- After studying the CEPT administrations' response to the questionnaire on implementing ERC REC 31-04 on "Harmonised CEPT Examination Procedures for the Short Range Certificate (SRC) for non-SOLAS Vessels" with a view to facilitating more harmonisation in the CEPT context, there was no consensus on the position to take on this issue, which should be debated again at the next meeting.
