• saltesc@lemmy.worldEnglish
      8·
      7 hours ago

      I have a handheld one—to float with me in a liferaft, etc—and it gets registered to a vessel or vehicle. Whenever I want to use it on something different, contact the federal government, advise of the new vessel ID or vehicle registration, and it’s now associated with the new one.

      I don’t think it matters much since it is a beacon after all, but I think it helps in searching. Also, a lot of other details are registered along with it so they know who to send the tens of thousands in fines to if I somehow bypass all three “Are you really sure?” switches and fire the thing off inappropriately.

      • neidu3@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        1·
        45 minutes ago

        Any chance what you have is not an EPIRB, but a SART? SARTS are only registered with beacon ID and doesn’t require programming. Shows up on radar and sometimes AIS also. No sat comms involved.

    • neidu3@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      10·
      9 hours ago

      It’s been a while, but off the top of my head: MMSI (which is basically the radio installation identifier. Same number is used for AIS), and an ID digit (0 in wheelhouse, 1 on starboard bridge wing, 2 on port, etc)

      • mossy_@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        7 hours ago

        nice, so plug it into a laptop, get it programmed, then drill it onto the ship?

        • neidu3@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          3·
          2 hours ago

          Yes, except no plugging involved: It’s some sort of inductive way of programming it via a USB dongle. The info is written into this “programming program” which can read and write data to the unit, it’s written, and then you read it to make sure all the info was applied.

          Then you label the unit physically with ship name, callsign, and MMSI. In addition to this there are two stickers that come with the unit, denoting the expiry date of the battery and the hydrostatic release. These go on the unit so that’s it easy to check if it’s time to replace them.