Most large ships come under the MANDITORY catagory for ship radio. If they are only on the great lakes, the inland costal waterway, or within vhf distance from shore then they use the NEWER vhf-GMDSS/DCS radios. Ocean going vessels use both satalite and HF with DIGITAL Comm. What has happened is that now instead of listening for emergency signals they use digitaly coded signals for MAYDAY , PAN-PAN, and SECURITY, and have separate signals for regular traffic. You can look under Global Maritime Distress and Signaling Systems for books and on the FCC site for the 3 GMDSS licenses, GMDSS/OP , GMDSS/Maintainer , GMDSS/OP-Maint,  also see ship radar.

CwCom by MRX software is a program that lets a user send morse code from computer to computer. Would be useful for unlicensed students to practice on, and also for classes and situations that don't allow radios and antennas.
Super Aldis 3 is a training program that works like the flashlights with the code button. The program doesn't have much in the way of a help file but you can import text files and if you have some patience, you may be able to get it to work from computer to computer if you have IP address.
Morse Cat 2 is a training program that can generate its own lessons or will import text files. Good for learning sets and then working into random sending and words.
Winmorse 2 is a program that takes text files and converts them into morse code audio files. Good for taking short conversations and turning them into sound.

I've got the radio talking to the computer thru Hyperterminal. I can monitor local digi but would like some kind of a program to operate this other than trying to use Hyper. I used Hyper 16 years ago for emergency call com and didn't like it then. I still don't like it today. Any info on VHF/UHF 1200 / 9600 software. One computer is running XP with USB com, the other computer is IBM think pad WIN98 on serial port. Both radios are DR635T with TNC boards.
Jim K.

Frustration with Morse Code. Ended up dropping out of Boy Scouts because you needed it for First Class. Little brother was CRYPTO operator in the Army ( ASA ) and could receive and touch type 40 plus words per min. He had absolutely no intrest in ham radio. Played with it until I finally got serious in 1989 and decided to take a novice class. Passed the 5 wpm and went on to get the 20 wpm for Extra. I already was a licensed GROL and knew the electronics, just took forever to work into the code.

Check Maritime communications, might be some of their stuff.

Broke bigger than Russia? Couldn't even pay attention if you wanted to? Only radio you'll afford is the walk man you picked up at Goodwill? Well then my friend, You've come to the right place. I went from Novice to Extra Class and didn't even own a radio that would pick up CW. Find whatever course you can beg, borrow, copy, or con out of somebody. I used ARRL tapes but anything will work. The trick is to make it a religion. Do it twice a day for about 15 to 20 min. Don't skip, lay off weekends, too busy, too tired, the kids tore the house apart and I have to clean, the dog ate my homework, you get the picture. Just like the advertisement says  "Just Do It"

If you check some of the security systems, most of their transcievers operate in the 900 Mhz area. Inovonics is all spread spectrum at 900 Mhz and a lot of short range video is up there too. Just about everything I do at work involves some kind of spread spectrum operation at 900 Mhz.