MF/HF Equipment tests: how to do it and actions in case test fails ?

There were days when only radio officers operated radio equipments. Deck officers had nothing to do with the radio equipments. With GMDSS equipments all deck officers are radio officers now. With this new responsibility, came new challenges. Deck officers have since tried their best to fill the gap of radio officer and they have done pretty good. But there are always few things we never find in book. We call these things "practical experiences". Many of these were lost with the radio officers but not all. Deck officers now need to know everything about how to make best use of GMDSS equipment. But GMDSS equipments are of no use, if these wont work when required. There are many functional requirements of GMDSS equipments. We can only be sure if these will perform or not by testing these at regular interval. Each GMDSS equipment has a testing interval and procedure to test. Familiarity with the GMDSS equipments is also essential to avoid PSC detentions. In this post I try to solve this problem with testing of MF/HF equipment and what to do if test fails. Lets Begin MF/HF equipment MF/HF equipment is for sending distress alerts over long range. We need to test MF/HF equipement to be sure of its functionality. Lets see what all test we need to do on MF/HF equipment. I will show this on JRC equipment MCU-331F. If you have w...