A ship can sail in any of four sea areas, as defined below:

 Sea area A1. An area within the radiotelephone coverage of at least one VHF
coast station in which continuous DSC alerting is available as defined by the
International Maritime Organization.
 Sea Area A2. An area, excluding sea area A1, within the radiotelephone
coverage of at least one MF coast station in which continuous DSC alerting is
available as defined by the International Maritime Organization.
 Sea Area A3. An area, excluding sea areas A1 and A2, within the coverage of
an INMARSAT geostationary satellite in which continuous alerting is available.
 Sea Area A4. An area outside sea areas A1, A2, and A3.

Is there any equipment that is common to all GMDSS ships?

Generally, all GMDSS ships must carry a 406 MHz EPIRB, a VHF radio capable of
transmitting and receiving DSC and radiotelephony, a NAVTEX receiver, a SART, and
two-way VHF portable radios. See the FCC's GMDSS regulations, 47 CFR Sections
80.1085 through 80.1093 for exact details.

As per SOLAS, GMDSS batteries should provide power to

operate GMDSS for

1. 1 hour in case GMDSS has the power from emergency

generators

2. 6 hours in case GMDSS does not have the power from

emergency generators.

3. Batteries must be recharged to the required minimum in

less than 10 hours.

4. The capacity of the batteries must be checked at

interval of less than 12 months.
GMDSS Batteries: Tests and
checks mariners must know
Written by Capt Rajeev Jassal on January 31, 2016

GMDSS batteries provide power to GMDSS equipments in

case ship’s main as well as emergency power fail. The
requirement of GMDSS batteries is governed by Regulation
13, Chapter 4 of SOLAS.

As per SOLAS, GMDSS batteries should provide power to

operate GMDSS for

1. 1 hour in case GMDSS has the power from emergency

generators
 2. 6 hours in case GMDSS does not have the power from
emergency generators.

3. Batteries must be recharged to the required minimum in

less than 10 hours.

4. The capacity of the batteries must be checked at

interval of less than 12 months.

Maintaining the GMDSS batteries in excellent condition is

important to have them ready in emergency. There are
typically three type of tests/Maintenance done on GMDSS
batteries.

1. Daily on Load/Off Load test

2. Yearly Capacity test

3. General Maintenance required on the battery.

1. Daily On Load / Off Load test

On load / off load test is done to ensure that

1. GMDSS equipments can have the power from battery.

This ensures that all the connections from the battery to
the GMDSS equipmemts are intact.
 2. Battery is able to provide power during operation of the
GMDSS equipments. That is when load is put on
battery, it does not drain out too quickly.

For the on Load / Off load test, Following procedure should

be followed

1. First Switch off the AC power to the GMDSS station. The

power button is usually under the GMDSS panel or on some
ships in the radio room (if you still have one). If you have
different AC source for charging the battery, that too need to
be switched off. This is because if the battery is on
continuous charge, this will not show any drop in voltage
which we intend to find out with On Load/Off Load test.

However most of the time, GMDSS power source flow is AC

power to batteries to GMDSS equipments. Switching off the
AC power automatically ensures batteries are not on
continuous charging during test. So after the GMDSS
equipments are on battery power, note down the voltage of
the batteries.

2. Press the PTT button to transmit on a non-distress and

idle R/T frequency. Note down the on-Load voltage while the
PTT is pressed.

3. The drop in voltage should not be more than 1.5 volts.

2. Capacity Test

All batteries have a life span. The capacity of a battery can

reduce with age. There has to be a way to measure the
capacity. And with Capacity test we do exactly that.

We can understand the capacity test with the comparison to

a water tank. We do not know how much water it can hold.
The one way of measuring its capacity would be filling the
water tank to full and then measuring it by draining.
Measurement can be with flow meter or with smaller
measuring buckets/container.

With capacity test, we measure the capacity of battery by

same method. We charge the battery to full and then
measure it by discharging. To discharge the battery, we
apply a known load to measure its capacity. Capacity of the
battery is measured in Ampere hour (Ah). So 200 Ah means
the battery can give a current of 200 Ampere for one hour or
20 Amperes for 10 hours and so on.

Before we proceed further, let’s agree on these two

staements

1. The voltage is not the measure of capacity of the

battery.

2. A battery 100% full (Fully charged) does not mean that

it will or can produce the rated capacity.

Looking at the first statement, if the voltage is not the

measure of capacity, what is ? As we already discussed, The
measure of capacity of a battery is “how much current it can
produce for how many hours”. With capacity test, that is
what we aim to measure.

It would be easier to understand the second statement with

example of a laptop. A new computer with 100% battery
might last for 8 hours . After few years same battery 100%
charged would only last 4-5 hours. This is due to the ageing
of the battery.  With age, battery looses its storage space.
 In the GMDSS framework, there are different Sea
Areas to allot the working equipment in the respective area. They are as follows:

AREA RANGE EQUIPMENT

A1 20 to 50 M VHF DSC

A2 50 to 400 M VHF + MF

A3 70° N to 70° S VHF + MF + One INMARSAT

A4 Above 70° N or S HF + MF + VHF

To understand the above table further, following are the ranges with regard to the
frequencies in a specific band:

1. Medium Frequencies: 300 KHz to 3 MHz

2. High Frequencies: 3 MHz to 30 MHz
3. Very High Frequencies: 30 MHz to 300 MHz
Avoiding Deep Discharge

There is another SOLAS requirement about deep discharge of

the battery while performing capacity test. In the simplest of
the terms, deep discharge means the least voltage a battery
can be brought to. If we discharge the battery below this
voltage, the battery can loose its capacity to a level where it
cannot be used again. For Nickel based batteries this voltage
is 1.0V per cell. So for 24V battery pack (1.2V x 20 Cells),
the deep discharge voltage will be 20V. While performing
capacity test, we should never allow the battery voltage to
go below 20V or 1V/Cell.

Now we all must be knowing this basic physics

 Power = Voltage x Current

The GMDSS battery is usually in the range of 200 Ah which is

required to give 24V.
We need to test if it still has 200Ah left in it. For this we need
to remove the batteries from charging and the existing load
(connections to GMDSS station) and attach some known load
to it. Usually a rig which consists of number of 100W bulbs in
series is attached to the batteries terminals. Say, if 6 bulbs
(600W )are attached to the battery, it would draw 25A of
current from the battery bank. This is because

600 watts / 24 Volts = 25 Amp

Once the load is attached to the battery bank, we need to

measure the voltage and the current across each battery
bank terminal. We need to do this at least every hour. This
will continue and we shall stop the test only if
1) The one battery cell is failing. That is drop of voltage in
one battery cell is different than others. In this case we need
to isolate this failing cell and then continue the test.

2) The voltage has reached the deep discharge voltage.

SOLAS requires that while performing the capacity test, deep
discharge of the battery shall be avoided. We have already
discussed what deep discharge is. During the test we need to
measure the voltage of each cell. The voltage should not go
below 1V in any cell or 20V for the battery pack.

3) The test has performed for sufficient time to show that

battery has 100% of its rated capacity. Say it has been 8
hours since the test started. And for 8 hours the current
measure was 25A. So the battery has already delivered
200Ah (25A x 8 Hours). This shows that battery’s capacity is
still 100%. In this case, this would conclude the test.

If we stop the test because of 3rd point, the battery is fine. If

we stop the test because we have come to deep discharge
voltage. We need to measure how much Ampere Hour has
the battery delivered at this point. If it is less than 80% of
its rated capacity, the capacity test has failed.

Charging the battery after capacity test

If the measured capacity is more than 80% of the rated

capacity, we can move to next step where we measure the
time required to charge the battery. There are two
parameters to show the percentage level a battery is
charged. These are terminal voltage reading or the specific
gravity of the electrolyte. A 24V battery when fully charged
would show a voltage of around 25.4V and specific gravity of
1.265. Determining the state of charge with voltage can be
tricky as voltage can change with temperature. Specific
gravity of electrolyte is considered more accurate way to
determine state of charge of battery. So after the capacity
test, we need to measure the time a battery takes to charge
to 100%. SOLAS require this time to be less than 10 hours.

3. General maintenance required on
GMDSS Batteries

The onboard batteries do not need much of maintenance as

such. There are two things that need to be checked. First is
the electrolyte level and second is the specific gravity of the
electrolyte. If you have maintenance free batteries onboard,
you do not need to check anything on that except the
conditions in which it is stored.

Level of the electrolyte

The level of electrolyte can reduce due to various reasons

but it is important that the level is maintained as per the
manufacturer’s instructions. If the level is low, the battery
cell must only be refilled with distilled water.
 Checking specific gravity of the
electrolyte

Specific gravity of the electrolyte is considered more

accurate measure of state of charge of the battery. Specific
gravity must be checked daily and recoded in battery log
alonwith voltage. Specific gravity can reduce because
of sulfation which causes the charging plates to be deposited
with crystals. This causes reduction of holding charge and
thus the capacity of the battery is reduced. BCI (Battery
Council Internation defines specific gravity of 1.265 as 100%
state of charge. 1.225 is considered 75% state of charge. It
is still better to refer to manufacturer’s instructions as some
manufacturers can go upto specific gravity of 1.280 as the
sign of 100% state of charge.

Conclusion

GMDSS batteries are important equipment which ensures

that emergency equipments gets power in real emergency. It
is thus important to maintain these batteries in an excellent
condition. Various tests/checks ensure that GMDSS batteries
would provide the required power. Daily on load/off load test
ensures that all connections are intact and when on load
batteries do not drop voltage too quickly. Annual capacity
test measures the capacity of the battery in Ampere hours.
We should replace the battery if capacity is less than 80% of
the rated capacity. Finally we should daily check the batteries
state of charge by measuring the specific gravity and level of
electrolyte.

The different elements of GMDSS are as follows:

1.  INMARSAT:  It is a Satellite operated system that includes ship earth station

terminals – Inmarsat B, C and F77. It provides telex, telephone and data
transfer services between ship-to-ship, ship to shore, and shore to ship along
with a priority telex and telephone service connected to shore rescue centres.
2.  NAVTEX: NAVTEX is an internationally adopted automated system which is
used to distribute MSI-maritime safety information, and includes weather
forecasts and warnings, navigational warnings, search and rescue notices and
other similar safety information.
3. Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB): EPIRB is an
equipment to help determine the position of survivors during a SAR operation.
It is a secondary means of distress alerting. Read about EPIRB here.
4.  Search and Rescue Locating Equipment: Primarily the Search and Rescue
Radar Transponder. This is used to home Search and Rescue units to the
position of distress which transmits upon interrogation. Read about Search and
Rescue equipment here.
5.  Digital Selective Calling (DSC): This is a calling service between ship to
ship, ship to shore or vice versa for safety and distress information mainly on
high or medium frequency and VHF maritime radio.

Documents to be carried onboard with regard to GMDSS:

1. Ship’s Radio License

2. Radio Operators Certificates
3. Safety Radio Certificate
4. GMDSS Radio Log Book
5. ITU List of Cell Signs and Numerical Identities of Stations used by Maritime
Mobile and Maritime Mobile Satellite Services
6. ITU List of Coast Stations
7. ITU List of Ship Stations
8. ITU List of Radio determination and Special Service Stations
9. Antenna Rigging Plan
10. Valid Shore Based Maintenance Certificate

On 1st Feb 1999, the fully implemented GMDSS came to picture. It was a set standard for
usage of communication protocol, procedures and safety equipment to be used at the time
of distress situation by the ship. Under GMDSS, all the passenger ships and cargo
ship above 300 GT involved in the voyages in international waters have to carry equipment
as per GMDSS.

In the GMDSS framework, there are different Sea Areas to allot the working
equipment in the respective area. They are as follows:

AREA RANGE EQUIPMENT

A1 20 to 50 M VHF DSC

A2 50 to 400 M VHF + MF

A3 70° N to 70° S VHF + MF + One INMARSAT

A4 Above 70° N or S HF + MF + VHF

To understand the above table further, following are the ranges with regard to the
frequencies in a specific band:

1. Medium Frequencies: 300 KHz to 3 MHz

2. High Frequencies: 3 MHz to 30 MHz
3. Very High Frequencies: 30 MHz to 300 MHz