[GreenKeys] NAVTEX Service/AEA Decoder Pakage

[Mark Richards]

Lawless, Loveless & Childress wrote:
> NAVTEX gear is a part of GMDSS and is required carriage equipment aboard 
> vessels of countries signatory to the SOLAS Treaty.  It is another "Box 

It would be of great interest to me, and I am certain others on this 
list, to learn more about your exploits on the seas.  My grandfather 
served on WWII convoys as a radio officer and I wish he were still alive 
so I might compile his stories in a book (it could well be thick).  His 
stories of "ice on the insulators" was especially captivating.

I had a wonderful opportunity a few years ago to tour a large container 
ship docked at Boston (my company at the time used them for its 
international shipments).  Of course, I asked the Captain (after hanging 
with the tour group for enough time to not appear rude) if I could 
interview the "Radio Officer" on board.  "We don't have one, officially, 
he said, and then introduced me to the person who formally held the 
title.  We trodded off together, leaving the standard tour.  From that 
point on it was a very nice turn through the spaces.

In the shack, which was huge and filled with large racks of gear, he 
explained that the need for a "Radio Officer" went away with the 
"digitizing" of maritime communications (which I was familiar with in 
that I mourned with everyone else the end of CW).  Then he took me to a 
workstation, pulled out a drawer, and there was a J-38 (I think that's 
the name), a beautiful CW key of US Navy vintage, WWII.  It inspired me 
to acquire one which sits here in my shack.  "If this ship is going down 
I'm not going to trust to luck that the bits and bytes might get through 
to some satellite", he said, "I want a human being on the other end". 
He spoke of his beloved key as "not a backup, but a prime resource".  I 
imagined it eventually living in a glass case with lettering, "BREAK 
GLASS IN EMERGENCY".

I just hope someone will be listening.

/mark
k1mgy