Pan Pan

The Pro-word or Prefix PAN PAN is used in urgent situations of a lower order than a “grave and imminent danger requiring immediate assistance” but where an urgent message needs to be passed concerning safety of a Person, Ship, Aircraft or Other Vehicle. for instance you may be concerned for a persons safety and require medical advice to ascertain a course of action to take? or you may have broken down and require a tow! etc.

A PAN PAN call has basically the same format as the MAYDAY call however you need leave out the following details.
1) the nature of your distress (simply because there is no distress)
2) the sentence “I require immediate assistance” (because you don’t, if you did the call would be MAYDAY)

The format of the urgent message is as follows:
PAN PAN (repeated three times) Your vessels name (repeated three times).
Your International call sign and MMSI.
PAN PAN (once) your vessels name (once).
Your Position (in Lat and Long) or compass bearings if you have no way of working out your position. Or position unknown.
Contents of urgent message
Over.

for example:-

PAN PAN, PAN PAN, PAN PAN
This is fishing vessel LL307 Early Dawn Early Dawn Early Dawn call sign 2CSG2 MMSI 235075333
PAN PAN fishing Vessel LL307 Early Dawn call sign 2CSG2 MMSI 235075333
My position is Five Zero degrees, Four Six minutes, North: Zero Zero Five degrees, One Seven minutes, West
I have a crewman who has passed out, breathing and pulse steady, I require medical advice.
Over.

You can initiate a PAN PAN call by using a DSC alert on your VHF radio. the easiest way to do this is to select the MMSI of your coastguards from the MMSI menu, then from the “SELECT CATEGORY” menu select “URGENCY” then SEND the DSC alert.
If you haven’t programmed the coastguards MMSI into your set. From the DSC menu you can select “SELECT TYPE OF CALL” then select “AREA” then from the “SELECT CATEGORY” menu select “URGENCY” then SEND the DSC alert. Note: selecting “AREA” is the same as an All Stations alert the DSC alert will be broadcast to all DSC enabled stations who are in range of your transmission. The VHF DSC equipment will repeat the message every four minutes until a digital acknowledgement is received or you cancel the alert.
After sending your DSC alert wait 15 seconds and then give the voice “PAN PAN” call and message.