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What is an 'Urgency Signal'?

Urgency signal is a wireless message which indicates that the calling station has a vary urgent message to transmit concerning the safety of a ship/vehicle or that of a person but the message cannot be ranked as distress message. Obviously, the urgency signal should be given priority over all other transmissions except distress call.

In radio telephony, the word PAN is repeated three times pronouncing it as the French word 'panne'. Other procedures to be followed in this type of traffic is same as that in distress traffic.

In radio telegraphy, the urgency signal consists of the group XXX ( _ . . _ _ . . _ _ . . _ ) sent slowly three times. Letters of each group should be clearly separated from each other. The urgency signal transmitted by a ship can be addressed to a specific station. However, a coast station can transmit its urgency signal to all the ship stations after the approval of a responsible authority.