Search and Rescue and Distress Calls

摘要

When working in my home office cum listening post, I don't often have my radio equipment switched on. That is, unless receive an alert that there is a search and rescue tasking in my locality. In such circumstances, I can be alerted in several ways. For example, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution pager software on my computer will alert me to any launches for the lifeboat stations that I have selected. I also have the RNLI short message service alert on my cell phone. This sends a text if one of my selected lifeboats has been launched. This is an excellent system, where you pay 25p for each SMS lifeboat launch alert and a portion of that goes to the RNLI. Another alert system I have is hearing the distinctive chop of the rotor blades of the Irish Coast Guard rescue helicopter approaching my location. All of these will cause me to switch on my radio equipment and also to bring up VesselFinder on mv computer.