As a courtesy to our audience, Maritime Commons will provide a daily compilation of nationally-relevant Federal Register Notices, or those notices that may impact a large segment of our readers. To provide comments for the public record, follow the Federal Register link for each individual notice. Please note, the Coast Guard cannot respond to comments on these notices outside of the Federal Register.

The Coast Guard announced in the Federal Register that it will cease monitoring the High Frequency (HF) voice distress frequencies within the contiguous United States and Hawaii because they are rarely used. These frequencies are: 4125 kHz; 6215 kHz; 8291 kHz; and 12290 kHz. Advances in radio technology offer alternative means to send out distress notices.

We will continue to monitor HF Digital Selective Calling distress alerting for all existing regions and voice distress alerting and hailing from Kodiak, Alaska, and Guam.

The Coast Guard will cease monitoring all high frequency voice distress frequencies on February 7, 2022.

For more information view the Federal Register Notice or search docket number USCG-2020-0668 on https://www.regulations.gov.

For information about this notice, please call or email Patrick Gallagher, Communications Specialist, Spectrum Management and Communications Policy, U.S. Coast Guard (Commandant CG-672); telephone: 202-475-3537; email: Patrick.J.Gallagher@USCG.mil.

This blog is not a replacement or substitute for the formal posting of regulations and updates or existing processes for receiving formal feedback of the same. Links provided on this blog will direct the reader to official publications, such as the Federal Register, Homeport and the Code of Federal Regulations. These publications remain the official source for regulatory information published by the Coast Guard.