The channel and the band
Channel 16: the calling and distress channel
Channel 16 (156.800 MHz) is the international VHF channel for distress, urgency, safety and calling. Every spoken emergency starts here, and at sea the watch keeps an ear on it.
Key facts
- Channel 16 carries four kinds of traffic: distress, urgency, safety, and calling another station when no other channel is arranged.
- A SOLAS ship at sea keeps a continuous listening watch on Channel 16 on the bridge, where practicable (SOLAS IV/12).
- Channel 16 is for making contact, not for conversation: call, agree a working channel, shift there. Distress, urgency and safety traffic is the business that stays on 16.
- Keep every transmission short. A blocked Channel 16 is not an annoyance, it is a hole in the distress system.
- False or hoax distress calls are a serious offence under the national laws that give effect to the Radio Regulations, and coast stations trace them.
- VHF works roughly line of sight. With typical ship aerials that means a few tens of nautical miles, and more when the coast station aerial stands high.
- The set transmits at up to 25 W. For close-range work switch to low power (1 W): it is enough, and it keeps your signal out of everyone else’s range.
Watch out
Radio checks on Channel 16: many coast stations ask ships to test on a working channel instead, and some countries restrict 16 to calling and emergencies only. When in doubt, do the check on the working channel of the station you are talking to.
Listen: the standard phrases
Recordings from our SMCP trainer, in the accents you actually hear on the air.
Where this comes from
ITU Radio Regulations, Appendix 18 and the GMDSS provisions; SOLAS Chapter IV, regulation 12 (radio watches).
This is not a legal text: when in doubt, the current wording of the Radio Regulations and the SMCP decides.
See also: Routine calls: the procedure · Mayday: the distress call