3.2 Required Log Entries (Key Topic 5)

3.2 Required Log Entries (Key Topic 5)

Key Topic 4 asked who keeps the book and how long to keep it. Key Topic 5 asks what goes on the page. Current 47 CFR 80.409 still supplies the legal list for compulsory radiotelephone and GMDSS ships. The 2009 Element 1 pool tests a compact version of that list. This OpenExamPrep section teaches the current regulation and the pool facts together so an MP candidate can both pass the item and keep a lawful log at sea.

Identity of every logged transmission

Radiotelephone stations that must keep logs of their transmissions include station, date, and time; the name of the operator on duty; and the station call signs with which communication took place. Element 1 treats those fields as all required, not as a menu from which the operator picks one. A line that says only “talked to a tug at noon” is incomplete. A complete line names the own station (or makes the station identity obvious from the heading of that day's page), records the date and time, identifies the operator, and records the other station's call sign.

Ship logs must also show vessel name, country of registry, and official number under 80.409(a)(3). That heading information belongs on the log as a whole so a later reader can tell which ship produced the pages. Time groups on radiotelegraph logs are expressed in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Radiotelephone operators should use a consistent time standard — commonly UTC on ocean voyages — and should not mix local clock time and UTC on the same page without saying which is which.

Where the GMDSS log lives, and how it may be abbreviated

The GMDSS radio log is kept at the GMDSS operating position. It is not filed in the captain's office as the working copy, not left in a sea cabin, and not “anywhere on board.” On many ships the GMDSS console is the principal radiotelephone operating position described in Key Topic 4. If the GMDSS watch is stood at a dedicated console, the GMDSS log stays there so the operator on watch can enter tests, alerts, and malfunctions as they happen.

80.409(a)(1) allows key letters or abbreviations if their proper meaning or explanation is contained elsewhere in the same log. Element 1 tests that permission for GMDSS radio logbooks. A legend on the inside cover — for example “PT = pre-departure test, DSC-OK = DSC test satisfactory” — makes short watch entries readable. Abbreviations with no key in that log are not a shortcut; they are an opaque record. The pool's other statements on that item are not the tested truth: it is not the case that abbreviations are banned in every circumstance, and it is not the case that every urgency communication worldwide must be copied in full regardless of whether it affects own ship.

Tests that must appear in the log

Element 1 groups required tests as pre-voyage, pre-departure, and daily tests. Current 80.409(e)(4) requires an entry that pre-departure equipment checks were satisfactory and that required publications are on hand, plus daily entries of satisfactory tests to ensure continued proper functioning of GMDSS equipment. 80.409(e)(5) requires a daily statement about the condition of the required radiotelephone equipment, as determined by either normal communication or a test communication. Those daily lines are not optional diary notes. They are the evidence that the installation was working on that date.

80.409(e)(6) adds a weekly entry that (i) DSC equipment was verified by actual communications or a test call, (ii) portable survival-craft radio gear and radar transponders were tested, and (iii) EPIRBs have been inspected. 80.409(e)(7) requires an entry at least once every thirty days that batteries or other reserve power sources have been checked and are functioning properly. 80.409(e)(8) records results of required equipment tests, including specific gravity of lead-acid storage batteries and voltage readings of other battery types in the compulsory installation. 80.409(e)(9) records inspections and tests of compulsorily fitted lifeboat radio equipment.

On the Element 1 exam, EPIRB tests are normally logged monthly. That is the tested interval in the 2009 pool (not “battery tests daily,” not “radiotelephone tests weekly” as the only true statement, and not “none of the above”). At the same time, current 80.409 asks for a weekly EPIRB inspection entry and a 30-day reserve-power check. Study both layers: use monthly EPIRB tests as the pool answer, and keep the weekly inspection and 30-day battery entries if you actually stand a compulsory GMDSS watch under today's Part 80.

80.409(e)(13) requires a GMDSS radio log entry whenever GMDSS equipment is exchanged or replaced (including updating ship MMSI identifiers in replacement equipment), when major repairs are accomplished, and when annual GMDSS inspections are conducted. 80.409(f) also wants an easily identifiable separate section for the required inspection of the ship's radio station, with inspector identity, license class and serial number, results, and owner/operator/master certification.

Distress, urgency, and safety — including the VHF exception

Current 80.409(e)(1) requires a summary of all distress and urgency communications affecting the station's own ship, all distress alerts relayed by own ship, and all distress-call acknowledgements and other communications received from search and rescue authorities. 80.409(e)(2) requires a summary of safety communications on other than VHF channels affecting own ship. 80.409(e)(3) records the time of any inadvertent transmission of distress, urgency, or safety signals, including the time and method of cancellation.

Element 1 packages the same idea as: entries for pre-voyage, pre-departure, and daily tests and a summary of all required distress communications heard and urgency communications affecting own ship, plus all safety communications other than VHF affecting own ship. Both parts of that package are required. Routine daily MF-HF and Inmarsat-C traffic that is not part of those categories is not the reason the log exists; the safety-related summaries and the required tests are.

The pool also asks which statement is false. It is false that all Safety communications received on VHF must be logged. VHF safety traffic is everywhere on a busy coast. 80.409(e)(2) deliberately limits the mandatory safety summary to non-VHF safety communications affecting own ship. Logging every VHF SECURITE broadcast would bury the distress and test entries that investigators actually need.

By contrast, these statements are treated as true logkeeping facts on the same item: all required equipment tests must be logged; the radio operator must log on and off watch; and the vessel's daily position must be entered. Public coast logs use “ON DUTY” and “OFF DUTY” with a signature on a written log. Ship radiotelegraph logs use “ON WATCH” and “OFF WATCH.” GMDSS and radiotelephone operators should identify who opened and closed the watch. Radiotelegraph logs under 80.409(d)(5) expressly require the ship's position at least once per day; Element 1 treats daily position as a required entry for logkeeping generally.

Other compulsory radiotelephone lines

80.409(e)(10) records when the master is notified about improperly operating radiotelephone equipment. That notice is an operational fact, not gossip. If the VHF will not reduce to one watt or the MF transmitter shows no output on 2182 kHz, tell the master and write that you did.

80.409(e)(11) requires, at the beginning of each watch, that the Officer of the Navigational Watch or the GMDSS operator on watch ensure the navigation receiver is functioning and interconnected to GMDSS alerting devices that do not have integral navigation receivers, including VHF DSC, MF DSC, satellite EPIRB, and HF DSC or Inmarsat SES. On a ship without integral or directly connected navigation input, that officer or operator updates the embedded position in each equipment. An appropriate log entry of those actions is required.

80.409(e)(12) requires an entry describing any malfunctioning GMDSS equipment and another entry when the equipment is restored to normal operation. Two lines, two times: broken, then fixed. Leaving a dead DSC controller undocumented until the annual inspection is not compliance.

Keep the identity block complete, park the GMDSS book at the GMDSS operating position, explain your shorthand, log the tests, summarize distress and urgency that affect own ship, summarize non-VHF safety that affects own ship, and do not claim that every VHF Safety call must be copied. That is Key Topic 5 in operational order.