Does the Coast Guard operate training on the Marine Guard frequencies?
In fact yes they do. The prime method of contact between MRCC's, Coastguard aircraft, lifeboats and subject vessels for either exercise or emergency is Channel 16 - The Distress and
Calling Channel. (Lifeboats do however use channel 0 for their own purposes.)
Having personal expreiences of all sides of the argument (military, aircrew, ATCO) I think this argument can only be settled by change, ideally a VHF PETF.
What a shame that the 243 coverage is far better than 121.50 despite both being provided by the same people!!!
Interesting concept. The 243 and 121.5 transmitters are all at the same locations and it is just the terrain that affects low level coverage. VHF has better range over UHF in terrain anyway so I'm unsure what you base your theory on. Maybe you are mixing up the differences in Auto triangulation provision with RTF coverage?