NAVDAT
Following the adoption of GMDSS in 1999 and the subsequent obsolescence of 500 kHz as a Morse distress frequency, the 2019 World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-19) allocated 500 ± 5 kHz to the maritime NAVDAT service. [4]
NAVDAT is intended for the broadcast of data from shore-to-ship and may thus be compared to NAVTEX. However, NAVDAT uses QAM modulation (in comparison to the SITOR used by NAVTEX) and is therefore capable of much higher data throughput. This allows NAVDAT broadcasts to carry images and other data as well as plain text, further allowing this data to be presented directly on an Electronic Chart Display and Information System (ECDIS). [5] This presents a significant improvement over the
text-only NAVTEX system.