[Scan-DC] Port of Baltimore

[Bob Crain]

To get a handle on the movement of large vessel traffic in and out of
Baltimore, channel 11 Marine VHF is a must.
156.55 is what the Bay Pilots and Baltimore Maritime Exchange use as a
working frequency. The maritime exchange has a high site transmitter on the
Bay Bridge and can be heard all the way to Solomon's. 

You should also load the many Marine VHF commercial frequencies in order to
listen to launches and tug boats in the harbor. Channels 12 14 18 are used a
lot. For a good bit of the band (up to channel 19) you can figure the freq
by taking 156 and adding the half of the channel number after the decimal
point.  Channel 12 = 156.60

Channel 13 (156.65)is a low power channel for bridge to bridge traffic. That
is a bridge of a vessel to a roadway bridge or bridge of a vessel to another
vessel bridge. The channel gets used a lot however it is only one watt. Most
of the ships and tugs have high gain antennas so you can hear these
transmissions a good way out.

If you get board with commercial there is always a lot of recreational
traffic to hear but this can get very tedious,
unless you might enjoy the 11 meter band from time to time.

The Coast Guard is active of the band also. They use 21a, 22a, 23a, 81a,
82a, 83a for daily operations and to assist vessels in distress. They also
use high band Government frequencies for operations. These are usually
encrypted.

Here is a link for this Band:  http://www.naval.com/marvhf.htm

Bob Crain
N3HFP