Marine Channel Frequencies VHF UHF Radio Programming

Radio communication is an integral part of nautical life. Whether you are a casual boater or a seagoing professional, this article provides the marine channels you need for programming modern VHF-UHF radios with the international frequencies for ships, yachts, motorboats, ferries, sailboats, cruise ships, freighters, tankers, industrial docks, skiffs, riverboats, inflatables, aquatic sports, fishing, kayaks, and all types of watercraft.  Program your walkie talkies with this free programming list. For Baofeng or any other type of radio, these are the communication frequencies for oceans, seas, lakes, and rivers of the…

Marine Channel Frequency Programming for VHF-UHF Radios

The original source of this article is RadioMaster Reports.

International Marine VHF and UHF Channel Frequencies Programming

PRINT THIS Marine VHF UHF channel list and save it. You will need it later.

International Marine VHF UHF Channel Frequencies Programming List

PRINT THIS Marine VHF UHF channel list and save it.

Download: Marine VHF UHF Channels for Chirp Programming

1. You will need a USB-to-Radio programming cable that is made for use with your radio. One end plugs into the USB port of your computer and the other plugs into the microphone jack of your radio.
2. Program your radio with free Chirp software.
3. Use the programming list to build your channel list into Chirp.
4. Upload the file to your radio.
5. Check your radio for proper operation.

Typical USB to Radio Programming Cables:

Convenient HT radio programming cable USB to microphone jack

Backup Radios for Marine Use

Accidents happen on the water, just like they do on land. All ships and boats should have a proper VHF marine radio and keep it tuned to Channel 16 for normal safety and distress calls. The cost of a bonafide Marine VHF radio is not high. But, mariners also like to keep a backup radio on hand for when the main radio goes out or the marine VHF walkie talkie gets lost. Also, there is a need for UHF among some users, especially for operation with cruise ships and industrial operations. Larger ships, and especially petroleum industry vessels issue intrinsically safe radios to their crews. These are sealed to prevent any internal sparks from igniting fuel on board or at port. UHF capability is a feature that is not often found in lower priced marine VHF HTs. Ship crews often use separate UHF-only radios for on board comms. Fortunately, modern VHF-UHF walkie talkie HT handheld transceivers are inexpensive (in the $25 range) and ubiquitous. With the programming list provided here, they have all the channels and communication capability of a marine VHF HT plus a UHF HT. Such inexpensive radios can easily be acquired online or even in the local radio electronics shops of ports all over the world. These days, all crew members can easily afford their own personal radio, and now they never need to be without a backup radio of their own. Add a longer whip antenna (in the $12 range) on them and the VHF distance performance can be quite good for intership or ship-to-shore.

Water sports radio bag

Sure, many of the cheaper radios are not waterproof, rugged, or intrinsically safe; and they certainly aren’t maritime-rated or type accepted for marine service, but they will still communicate adequately. The audio quality is usually good enough that the party on the other end of the transmission won’t even suspect what type of radio you are on. Keep it in a sealed zip lock plastic bag or water sports radio bag and it should provide many years of backup service. The radio might even save the life of you and your shipmates some day.

Distress Safety and Calling Channels

There are 3 VHF channels recognized worldwide for marine safety purposes:

MAR 16 (156.800 MHz) – Distress, Safety and Calling
MAR 13 (156.650 MHz) – Intership Navigation, Bridge-to-Bridge
MAR 70 (156.525 MHz) – Digital Selective Calling

The channels should be set to scan channels 16 and 13.

Cruise Ship UHF Radio on a shore tour transport skiff

UHF Cruise Ship Frequencies On Board

UHF frequencies are part of the channel list. These are not VHF marine channels, but they are the UHF marine channels commonly utilized on board large vessels, such as cruise ships and ferries. Ships also may have UHF repeaters on these frequencies for use by the working crews. There are  6 sets of paired channels. The 457 MHz range is common to both european CEPT and USA/North American ships. The channels in the 467 MHz range may vary by the area where the vessel is from. The UHF channel names with A designators are european CEPT and the channel names with B designators are USA/North American. Example: Channel UHF1B is a USA/North America channel at 467.750000 MHz. The repeater offset is 10.000000 MHz for CEPT vessels and 10.225000 MHz for USA and North American vessels. Duplex UHF repeaters with either (-) Negative or (+) Positive splits are common on vessels.

Industrial Ship UHF Radio

Most on board UHF ship radios utilize PL or CTCSS sub-audible tone squelch, although some use DCS digital coded squelch. The most common PL tone (88.5 Hz) is provided as a default in the programming list, but you may need to manually change the programming of that default tone on a channel to another specific tone frequency, to be compatible with a specific ship channel. The programming list uses carrier squelch for receive, so you can always listen to all transmissions by ships on the UHF channels, but they probably will not hear your transmission unless you change the PL transmit tone to the same tone as they are using. These same UHF channels are also found around major shipyards, freight docks, freighters, tankers, industrial marine sites, oil platforms, ports, and many other types of marine sites.

Cruise ship passengers commonly use FRS or PMR radios to keep in touch with family members on the cruise

Additional Walkie Talkie Channels

A few additional walkie talkie channels are provided in the programming list. These include FRS, PMR, FreeNet, MURS, etc. They may come in handy to communicate with common bubble pack radios or other non-marine HT radios that are often encountered around marine environments. It is very common for passengers on cruise ships to use PMR Personal Mobile Radio or FRS Family Radio Service radios while on board, on shore tours, and in ports.

New Marine VHF Channels 12.5 kHz Interleaved

New maritime VHF channels which are interleaved between the existing channels are now available for use by suitably equipped vessels in some areas of the world. These new channels are numbered in the 200 series, and they are spaced at 12.5 kHz intervals from the previous channel frequencies. The use of these channels is in addition to the existing channels, and they do not replace the existing channels. Channel 16 calling, distress and safety channel remains the same, and the interleaved channels adjacent to it are reserved and not utilized in the interleaving plan, to prevent interference. Additionally, new AIS automatic identification system vessel tracking channels have been added, and new AIS services are being expanded in some areas. As part of the spectrum efficiency process called narrowbanding, the international maritime VHF band will also be further interleaved with 6.25 kHz spaced channels in the near future. More digital services and digitized voice modes will be applied to these channels. The narrowband 6.25 kHz marine VHF channels will have channel numbers in the 1000 series.

New Marine VHF 12.5 kHz Channel Frequencies Interleaved. Also known as the 200 channels.

Marine VHF UHF Channel Frequencies USA-Canada Programming List 2016B

MEM	CHANNEL NAME	FREQUENCY	TRANSMIT
0	MAR01	160.650000	-4.6MHz
1	MAR01A	156.050000	SIMPLEX
2	MAR02	160.700000	-4.6MHz
3	MAR02A	156.100000	SIMPLEX
4	MAR03A	156.150000	SIMPLEX
5	MAR04A	156.200000	SIMPLEX
6	MAR05A	156.250000	SIMPLEX
7	MAR06	156.300000	SIMPLEX
8	MAR07A	156.350000	SIMPLEX
9	MAR08	156.400000	SIMPLEX
10	MAR09	156.450000	SIMPLEX
11	MAR10	156.500000	SIMPLEX
12	MAR11	156.550000	SIMPLEX
13	MAR12	156.600000	SIMPLEX
14	MAR13	156.650000	SIMPLEX
15	MAR14	156.700000	SIMPLEX
16	MAR 16	156.800000	SIMPLEX
17	MAR15	156.750000	SIMPLEX
18	MAR17	156.850000	SIMPLEX
19	MAR18A	156.900000	SIMPLEX
20	MAR19A	156.950000	SIMPLEX
21	MAR20	161.600000	-4.6MHz
22	MAR20A	157.000000	SIMPLEX
23	MAR21	161.650000	-4.6MHz
24	MAR21A	157.050000	SIMPLEX
25	MAR22A	157.100000	SIMPLEX
26	MAR23	161.750000	-4.6MHz
27	MAR23A	157.150000	SIMPLEX
28	MAR24	161.800000	-4.6MHz
29	MAR25	161.850000	-4.6MHz
30	MAR26	161.900000	-4.6MHz
31	MAR27	161.950000	-4.6MHz
32	MAR28	162.000000	-4.6MHz
33	MAR60	160.625000	-4.6MHz
34	MAR60A	156.025000	SIMPLEX
35	MAR61A	156.075000	SIMPLEX
36	MAR62A	156.125000	SIMPLEX
37	MAR63A	156.175000	SIMPLEX
38	MAR64A	156.225000	SIMPLEX
39	MAR65A	156.275000	SIMPLEX
40	MAR66A	156.325000	SIMPLEX
41	MAR67	156.375000	SIMPLEX
42	MAR68	156.425000	SIMPLEX
43	MAR69	156.475000	SIMPLEX
44	MAR70	156.525000	SIMPLEX
45	MAR71	156.575000	SIMPLEX
46	MAR72	156.625000	SIMPLEX
47	MAR73	156.675000	SIMPLEX
48	MAR74	156.725000	SIMPLEX
49	MAR75	156.775000	SIMPLEX
50	MAR76	156.825000	SIMPLEX
51	MAR77	156.875000	SIMPLEX
52	MAR78A	156.925000	SIMPLEX
53	MAR79A	156.975000	SIMPLEX
54	MAR80A	157.025000	SIMPLEX
55	MAR81A	157.075000	SIMPLEX
56	MAR82A	157.125000	SIMPLEX
57	MAR83	161.775000	-4.6MHz
58	MAR83A	157.175000	SIMPLEX
59	MAR84	161.825000	-4.6MHz
60	MAR84A	157.225000	SIMPLEX
61	MAR85	161.875000	-4.6MHz
62	MAR85A	157.275000	SIMPLEX
63	MAR86	161.925000	-4.6MHz
64	MAR86A	157.325000	SIMPLEX
65	MAR87	161.975000	-4.6MHz
66	MAR87A	157.375000	SIMPLEX
67	MAR88	162.025000	-4.6MHz
68	MAR88A	157.425000	SIMPLEX
69	WX 1	162.550000	off
70	WX 2	162.400000	off
71	WX 3	162.475000	off
72	WX 4	162.425000	off
73	WX 5	162.450000	off
74	WX 6	162.500000	off
75	WX 7	162.525000	off
76	UHF 1	467.525000	SIMPLEX
77	UHF 1A	457.525000	SIMPLEX
78	UHF 1B	467.750000	SIMPLEX
79	UHF 2	467.550000	SIMPLEX
80	UHF 2A	457.550000	SIMPLEX
81	UHF 2B	467.775000	SIMPLEX
82	UHF 3	467.575000	SIMPLEX
83	UHF 3A	457.575000	SIMPLEX
84	UHF 3B	467.800000	SIMPLEX
85	UHF 4	467.500000	SIMPLEX
86	UHF 4A	457.500000	SIMPLEX
87	UHF 4B	467.725000	SIMPLEX
88	UHF 5	467.600000	SIMPLEX
89	UHF 5A	457.600000	SIMPLEX
90	UHF 5B	467.825000	SIMPLEX
91	UHF 6	467.625000	SIMPLEX
92	UHF 6A	457.625000	SIMPLEX
93	UHF 6B	467.850000	SIMPLEX
94	FRS 1	462.562500	SIMPLEX
95	FRS 3	462.612500	SIMPLEX
96	PMR 3	446.031250	SIMPLEX
97	MURS 1	151.820000	SIMPLEX
98	MURS 2	151.880000	SIMPLEX
99	MURS 3	151.940000	SIMPLEX

International Standard Channel Frequency List for Maritime Mobile UHF: ITU-R M.1174-3

ITU-R M.1174-3 UHF MARINE channels (release date 2015) international standard list of UHF marine frequencies for use on vessels. This chart includes the original 6 channels (mostly analog FM at 25 kHz channel spacing). The 25 splinter channels (analog or digital at 12.5 kHz channel spacing). The new narrowband digital channel numbers 102-161 and 202-261 are interspersed (at 6.25 kHz channel spacing) between the splinter channels. The international standard for split frequency duplex is for base or repeater on the Lower Channel, but some vessels utilize the opposite of this standard.

Submission of monitoring reports, imagery, errata, and detailed information is encouraged by RadioMaster Reports.

Disclaimer: Content provided in RadioMaster Reports is included for the sole purpose of providing educational information on a passive basis. This information may be useful to the public in the event of emergencies. Users of this educational information are solely responsible for their actions. 

©2016 RadioMaster Reports

Advertisement