Annex - Recommendation on Performance Standards for Inmarsat-C Ship Earth Stations Capable of Transmitting and Receiving Direct-Printing Communications
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Statutory Documents - IMO Publications and Documents - Resolutions - Assembly - IMO Resolution A.807(19) – Performance Standards for Inmarsat-C Ship Earth Stations Capable of Transmitting and Receiving Direct-Printing Communications – (Adopted on 23 November 1995) - Annex - Recommendation on Performance Standards for Inmarsat-C Ship Earth Stations Capable of Transmitting and Receiving Direct-Printing Communications

Annex - Recommendation on Performance Standards for Inmarsat-C Ship Earth Stations Capable of Transmitting and Receiving Direct-Printing Communications

  1 Introduction

  1.1 The Inmarsat-C ship earth station installation capable of transmitting and receiving direct-printing communications should comply with the general requirements set out in Resolution A.694(17) and with the following minimum performance requirements.

  1.2 The performance of any enhanced group call facility provided by the ship earth station should be in accordance with the performance standards for enhanced group call equipment set out in resolution A.664(16).

  2 Technical Requirements

 The ship earth station should be type-approved by Inmarsat and should comply with the environmental conditions specified in its technical requirements for Inmarsat-C ship earth stations.

  3 Operation

  3.1 No control external to the equipment should be available for alteration of the ship station identity.

  3.2 It should be possible to initiate and make distress calls from the position from which the ship is normally navigated and from at least one other position designated for distress alerting.

  3.3 A distress alert should be activated only by means of a dedicated distress button. This button should not be any key of an ITU-T digital input panel or an ISO keyboard provided on the equipment.

  3.4 The dedicated distress button should:

  3.5 The distress alert initiation should require at least two independent actions.

  3.6 The equipment should indicate the status of the distress alert transmission.

  3.7 It should be possible to interrupt and initiate distress messages at any time.

  3.8 Facilities should be provided to automatically update the ship's position and the time at which the position was determined from a suitable electronic position-fixing aid which may be an integral part of the equipment. For equipment which does not have an integral electronic position-fixing aid, such facilities should include a suitable interface conforming to the appropriate international standard.footnote

  3.9 Provisions should also be made for manual entry of position information and of the time at which the position was determined.

  3.10 An alarm should be activated when no position data is received from the electronic position-fixing aid or, in the case of manual input, the position information is over 4 hours old. Any position information not updated for more than 24 hours should be clearly identified.

  4 Radio Frequency Hazards

 In order to permit a warning of potential radiation hazards to be displayed in appropriate locations, a label should be attached to the radome indicating the distances external to the radome at which radiation levels of 100 W/m2, 25 W/m2 and 10 W/m2 exist. However, the distances which are within a radome need not be indicated.

  5 Power Supply

  5.1 The ship earth station should normally be powered from the ship's main source of electrical energy. In addition, it should be possible to operate the ship earth station and all equipment necessary for its normal functioning, including the antenna tracking system, where provided, from an alternative source of energy.

  5.2 Changing from one source of supply to another or any interruption of up to 60 s duration of the supply of electrical energy should not require the equipment to be manually re-initialized and should not result in loss of received messages stored in the memory.

  6 Antenna Siting

  6.1 Where an omnidirectional antenna is used it should, if practicable, be sited in such a position that no obstacle likely to degrade significantly the performance of the equipment appears in the fore and aft directions down to -5° and in the port and starboard directions down to -15°. For omnidirectional antennas, objects, especially those within 1 m of the antenna, which cause a shadow sector of greater than 2°, are likely to degrade significantly the performance of the equipment.

  6.2 Where a stabilized directive antenna is used it should, if practicable, be sited in such a position that no obstacle likely to degrade significantly the performance of the equipment appears in any azimuth down to -5°. For directive antennas with a gain of approximately 20 dB, objects, especially those within 10 m of the antenna, which cause a shadow sector of greater than 6°, are likely to degrade significantly the performance of the equipment.


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