The U. S. Coast Guard may briefly be unable to hear distress calls in Southeast Alaska for 3-5 minute intervals this week.
The Coast Guard sent out a notice on Monday, Nov. 3, that they would be undergoing maintenance upgrades from Nov. 3 – 7 – and this would impact receiving messages on the region’s emergency VHF channel 16.
In the broadly distributed email, the Coast Guard said they “may be unable to listen to or respond to distress calls on CH16 starting 03NOV25 until 07NOV25.”
But in a statement to KFSK later, the Coast Guard wrote, “the VHF-FM marine radio will not be down the entire 96 hours. It will experience a brief interruption, lasting only 3-5 minutes, during a scheduled upgrade within that 96-hour time frame.”
The statement did not indicate exactly when that outage would occur.
The statement said that before beginning the upgrade, they will ensure no active search and rescues are in progress. If they are, the upgrade will be postponed until after any search and rescues are complete.
In another notice sent at 1am on Nov. 4, the Coast Guard wrote “Due to scheduled maintenance the Coast Guard my [sic] experience intermittent communications outages that last approximately three minutes.”
This upgrade comes as a competitive red king crab fishery is underway in multiple waterways in Southeast.
The Coast Guard asks that any mariners in distress during the upgrade contact the nearest Coast Guard unit or contact the Command Center in Juneau at 866-759-6061.
In the statement, they wrote that phones would be operational, and “as always, the Coast Guard remains ready to answer all distress calls during this time.”
This story has been updated to reflect the new Coast Guard email.
