3.1 The equipment should provide a visual indication
that the ship's position has not been updated during the last 12 h.
It should only be possible to reset this indication by revalidating
the ship's position.
3.2 Means should be provided to enter the ship's
position and current and planned NAVAREA/METAREA codes manually so
that area group calls can be received. Means should also be provided
to enter current and planned coastal warning service coverage areas
and different classes of messages. Optionally, the ship's position,
as determined by the navigational equipment, may be entered automatically
and the NAVAREA/METAREA code automatically derived therefrom.
3.3 Provision should be made for a specific aural
alarm and visual indication at the position from which the ship is
normally navigated, to indicate receipt of a distress or urgency priority
EGC message. It should not be possible to disable this alarm and it
should only be possible to reset it manually and only from the position
where the message is displayed or printed.
3.4 The equipment should indicate when it is not
correctly tuned or synchronized to the EGC carrier.
3.5 Any message should be printed regardless of
the character error rate of its reception. The equipment should print
a low line mark if a character is received corrupted.
3.6 Acceptance or rejection of service codesfootnote should be under the operator's control
except that equipment should always receive navigational warnings,
meteorological warnings and forecasts, search and rescue information
and shore-to-ship distress alerts, which are directed to a fixed or
absolute geographical area within which the ship is operating.
3.7 Means should be provided to prevent the re-printing
of a message once it has been received without error.
3.8 The printing device should be capable of printing
at least the standard International Alphabet Number 5 (IA5) character
set. Other character sets are optionally used according to ISO 2022footnotestandards or CCITT Recommendation T.61.
3.9 The printing device should be able to print
at least 40 characters per line.
3.10 The signal processor and printing device
should ensure that if a word cannot be accommodated in full on one
line, it should be transferred to the next line. The printing device
should automatically feed five lines after completing the printed
messages.
3.11 A local audible alarm should be sounded to
give advanced warning of the printing device "paper low" condition.
It should not be possible to confuse the sound of the "paper low"
alarm with that of the distress or urgency alarm caused by the reception
of a distress or urgency priority message.