Rescue 21

Rescue 21 is “standing the watch,” providing coverage of more than 40,600 miles of U.S. coastline. Click to view a larger version of this diagram. Note: Coverage rings are depicted for illustration purposes only.

Overview

Saving Lives in the 21st Century

The U.S. Coast Guard is modernizing its outdated national distress communications system. The new system, called Rescue 21, will be the nation’s primary maritime emergency system for the more than 78 million boaters and 13 million vessels that navigate coastal and intercoastal waters.

The system will greatly improve the Coast Guard’s ability to detect mayday calls from boaters, pinpoint the location of the source of the call, and coordinate rescue operations throughout the U.S. coastline and interior waterways.

What’s New?

Rescue 21 will replace a wide range of aging, obsolete VHF-FM radio communications equipment:

• Workstations/consoles at about 270 Coast Guard facilities
• All remote transceiver sites, as well as the network connecting them to the facilities above
• Approximately 3,000 portable radios
• Direction finding capability greatly improved to +/- 2 degrees
• Communications coverage gaps in existing system greatly reduced