[Milsurplus] Old Marine 2 MHZ Channels

[Hubert Miller]

This small locale has 2 AM stations and had two weather stations, I think 1610 and 1640 kHz. One NOAA and one USCG; probably the 
USCG broadcast was more oriented to bar crossing condition report. The USCG has a tower overlooking the channel between the 
jetties; I learned the tower is only staffed when the bar is restricted for certain size vessels, depending on condition roughness of 
the crossing. Boats call the USCG by "Yaquina Tower".  One of the 2 advisory stations was apparently deemed redundant because 
one is off the air. I found that no mariner here listened to the AM freq broadcasts anyway; everyone preferred to call the Coast 
Guard for their own personally delivered  bar report, even tho this is real redundant for the Coast Guard.  ( The local police have
a different kind of "bar report", where they nightly do a walk-through of  "Moby Dick's Tavern" ) Walking by the Coast Guard
station I could see the site of their AM broadcast; a mast of about twenty feet and a screen like real wide spaced chicken fence wire
on the roof of the shed. I was on a service call to the USCG station once for their digital service and it looked to me that the office
was looking quite dated - it's an old station, built in the late 1930s, I think - and the radio equipment was real mundane looking,
commercial gear. It's all old, but it works. Anyway they do a great job here and when the USCG heads wanted to close the 
Newport helicopter station to save money, there was a great hue & cry about it and the action was postponed a year or more. 
The chopper every year saves a few lives either from fishing boats going down or even foolish tourists trapped out on some 
rocks when the tide came in. Basing the chopper 1/2 to 3/4 hour away would mean deaths in those cases. 
-Hue 

>Subject: [Milsurplus] Old Marine 2 MHZ Channels

2142 became available pretty late in the AM game. It was a ship to ship working channel. Few boats had it. We added it to our set in the late 60s. 

2638 and 2738 had most of the ship to ship traffic on the W Coast. At times those two freqs were chock full of howling heterodynes. 

2142 had much less traffic.

2670 as I recall was a USCG working channel. USCG Marine Information Broadcasts were transmitted on 2670. 

AF6IM