@article{2017,title={A Study on Distress Alarm Efficiency of Merchant Ships Communication Systems: GMDSS},abstractNode={Communication at sea has become one of the most important elements of maritime transport due to potential hazards of marine environment and important role of time element in trade. It had been seen that as first communication devices on ships are the radio telegrams that have been used from on the beginning of the twentieth century. The tragic consequences of the Titanic accident that took place on 15 April 1912, it had been for the first time caused the authorities to draw their attention to the limited communication facilities of the vessels and its consequences. The London Conference was held on 5 July 1912 because of this Accident. The radio watchkeeping hours on ships has been arranged and the 500 kHz determined as priority ship communication frequency at the London Conference. In a meeting held by The International Maritime Organization (IMO)in 1979 had been decided to establish a The Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (GMDSS) has search and rescue (SAR) infrastructure to increase safety at sea. The requirements of GMDSS It has become mandatory for ships subject to Convention on the Safety of Life at the Sea (SOLAS) by adding to the Chapter IV of the SOLAS. After the GMDSS System which has different communication device requirements for the ships according to the sea areas they navigate, navigating ships in dangerous oceans has become safer but it is reported that there are also many problems in which the system can not be solved yet by the manufacturers design errors and operator borne errors (Tzannatos, 2004). It is the purpose of this work to establish proposals to make the existing system work better within the framework of the results after determining the amount of false alarms in ship electronic communication systems. It is known that one of the most important issues of the GMDSS system is that false alarms have unnecessarily occupied the Search and Rescue units around the world and caused huge financial Damage. In this study, demanded distress calls data were from the units responsible for the search and rescue activities of the countries. Data tables were created by classifying the data shared by search and rescue units according to Inmarsat, Cospas-Sarsat and DSC communication methods used. The number of false alarms worldwide has been trending down compared to the years. The alarms send by using different GMDSS communication methods are the false alarms in the 86 to 100 percent range. it is understood that The results obtained from study confirm that the GMDSS communication system currently in use on ships subject to SOLAS needs to be updated.},author={İdris TURNA-- Orkun Burak ÖZTÜRK - Ersan BAŞAR},year={2017},journal={Journal of Turkish Studies}}