COMMUNICATIONS BULLETIN #17

Published in the Asbury Park Press 6/05/01
By KIRK MOORE, STAFF WRITER

The child's voice appeared on the computer screen as a squiggle of lines, a visual voice signature, as words came over the speaker with a blast of static: "Mayday, Mayday."

If federal officers track down that kid and his radio, his parents could be in for some surprises -- potential federal and state penalties in the thousands of dollars for broadcasting a false distress call.  A task force of Coast Guard, State Police and Federal Communications Commission agents have staked out central Barnegat Bay with radio direction-finding and recording equipment, hoping to catch hoax distress callers who they say endanger both rescue crews and other boaters, as well as wasting tax dollars on pointless searches.

Dubbed Operation Stop Hoax-Jump Start, it's the first concerted effort in New Jersey waters to fight a growing national problem of marine radio misuse, said Lt. Cmdr. Donna Cottrell, Operations Officer for the Coast Guard Atlantic City Group.  It started last weekend and will continue through the summer, because the Barnegat region has become a hotbed of false calls on channel 16, the marine VHF (very high frequency) channel for hailing the Coast Guard.

Saturday's rain kept radio frequencies quiet on the bay, although the Coast Guard heard false messages farther down the coast.  "We didn't catch any fish (illegal broadcasters), but it's a long summer, and we'll be here the whole time," said Trent Williams, a compliance specialist with the FCC, as officials announced the operation yesterday at the Coast Guard Air Station in Egg Harbor Township.  False distress calls are an escalating national problem that cost an estimated $18 million in wasted aircraft and boat searches last year, according to the Coast Guard.  The problem has been getting worse since the mid-1990s, said Capt. Tom King, Commander of the Atlantic City Group, which covers the New Jersey coast from Point Pleasant to Cape May.

In 1997 those Coast Guard stations received 23 false calls, followed by 62 hoaxes in 1998 and a doubling to 128 in 1999.  Since last Oct. 1, when the 2001 reporting period began, the stations have already logged 111 fake distress messages, King said.  Those calls have cost more than $110,500 in fuel and search costs, besides endangering the lives of Coast Guard boat and aircraft crews, he said.  "Sometimes it's bad weather when we have to launch (rescue missions), so these hoax calls put our folks in danger," King said.  About 40 percent of the false calls in southern New Jersey emanate from the Waretown-Barnegat Light area, he said.  "I'm out there flying for hours on calls when we know it's probably fake," said Lt. Brian Glander, a Coast Guard helicopter pilot who helped coordinate last weekend's operation.  Those false alarms waste time, but more critically, they can put aircraft and boats far away from where they are needed when a real search-and-rescue situation erupts, he said.  "It's different from getting a 911 call on land.  When you hear it, you just go.  If you hear one of these calls, it means someone is sinking," said Lt. William Vowell, Commander of the State Police marine station in Atlantic City and the southern Ocean County station in Eagleswood.  "Mayday" is the international voice signal for distress, Anglicized from the French expression "m'aidez," or "help me."  In southern New England waters, fake Maydays have doubled since 1994 and now make up an estimated 30 percent of emergency broadcasts, according to officials of the Coast Guard First District headquarters in Boston.  "I think it's the increase in recreational boating," Cottrell said.  "The Seventh District (Florida, Georgia and South Carolina) has the highest rate of hoax calls in the country.  In Alaska, it's almost nonexistent."

The auxiliary's public awareness effort is critical because King said it's estimated 30 percent of hoax calls come from children, 27 percent from teens, and 33 percent from adults.  More than 90 percent of the hoax callers are male, he add-ed.  Tracking them down is tough, Coast Guard and FCC officials admit. Most hoax calls are very brief, so the FCC has set up two fixed antennas in Ocean County to consistently track and record fake messages.  Meanwhile, FCC agents in two sport utility vehicles equipped with radios and computers look to get directional fixes on hoax calls, as do Coast Guard and Coast Guard Auxiliary crews out on the bay with handheld direction finders.  "This accuracy is enough for us to get a third leg" and better pinpoint a transmission source, Borofsky explained.  Agents hope eventually that will get them close enough to boats, a marina or lagoon neighborhood where FCC mobile units can pinpoint a hoax caller. Callers' voice patterns are being recorded, along with the characteristic electronic signature of their VHF radio, said the FCC's Williams.  "We can capture that on computer.  If we locate a suspect, we can test that radio," he said.  A New Jersey state law against "false public alarms" provides for jail terms up to five years, fines and civil restitution for the cost of searches.  That law was passed after a 1999 case in which a fugitive tried to fake his death in the ocean surf.  "We did surface searches for weeks" looking for the man, re-called state trooper Ernest Niederhofer.  False distress calls to the Coast Guard are a federal felony punishable by up to six years in jail, fines up to $250,000 and repayment of search and rescue costs.  That can bring a hefty bill, considering it costs about $4,000 an hour to operate the HH-65 Dolphin helicopters that fly from the air station.  If they catch a juvenile making false calls, Coast Guard officials say they'll ask the U.S. Attorney's Office to take action against the parents.  Coast Guard experts have to make a judgment about every distress call they receive, using all the skills, clues and corroborating information at hand, said Chief Warrant Officer David Bear.  Sometimes their decision is to call off a wild goose chase, but still, "you lie awake at night and hope you did the right thing, and hope that bodies don't wash up," Bear said with a little shudder.  "It's horrible."

Perhaps the most infamous case was the Sol e Mar incident, named for a fishing boat and its crew lost off Martha's Vineyard, Mass. in March 1990.  Coast Guard radio operators briefly heard a distress call believed to come from the sinking Sol e Mar, but couldn't establish contact with the two fishermen on board.  Within two minutes, the Coast Guard got another, stronger signal from a laughing prank caller.  At the time, it was assumed both calls came from the same source.  It wasn't until a relative called days later that an unsuccessful search was launched for the fishermen.  The Sol e Mar case led to the strong federal law against false distress calls.  The tragedy also called attention to the Coast Guard's outdated, 1960s-vintage communication technology.  Only now is the service looking forward to a $240 million to $300 million upgrade of its communications system, due for completion by 2006.

The Coast Guard hot line to report false distress calls is (800)264-5980.  Kirk Moore: (732)557-5728. 

Published on June 5, 2001

EDITED BY:	JOE RZUCIDLO	BC-OTM	jr46@erols.com
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