Automation of DMA's (Defense Mapping Agency) Broadcast Warnings: A Significant Milestone in Marine Communications

摘要

The Defense Mapping Agency Hydrographic/Topographic Center (HTC) has just completed the automation of its Broadcast Warnings and this software is now operational on the Automated Notice of Mariners System (ANMS). The new Broadcast Warning Subsystem is comprised of over 40 programs and subroutines. The data base of active warnings is constantly updated by an interactive data entry subsystem to provide mariners with the latest navigational safety information. All data base management of canceled messages, as well as the printing of the messages, is now performed by the ANMS computer. The ANMS computer creates a tape to automatically typeset DMA's Daily Memorandum. This makes the text of Broadcast Warnings available to mariners and other hydrographic offices in the interim period between the actual radio broadcast and receipt of U.S. Weekly Notice to Mariners by the various users. As an added benefit, all global communications links which are already installed on the ANMS for the Chart Correction Subsystem have been connected to the Broadcast Warnings Subsystem. This new service will allow mariners who may have missed relevant warnings to query the ANMS computer for the complete text of all messages in effect in their subregion (as indicated by the first two numbers of any HTC chart). The implications of this system as a means to enhance and support a truly effective worldwide navigational warning service are immense. The ANMS host computer system, with its global communications links, promise to make HTC's system an important element of any future global Navigation Warning System. (Author)