GME MT403 EPIRB

[Adrianp 35]

4 hours ago, Sabre said:

Are they really produced market specific? I would have thought registering the epirb with beacons.org.nz would make where it came from irrelevant?

The are Country Specific, so they the right rescue centre get the alarm. Our Boat came with an Ozzie one and it could not be registered with MNZ as it alerts Ozzie if activated.

We brought a NZ one in the end but carry the Ozzie one as a backup. After a lot of emails, I managed to get the details updated of the Ozzie one so that they know who to contact if it goes off half way to Fiji. 

[Island Time 775]

The hex numbers designate country of origin. If you have a NZ one, the NZ authorities get the message 1st, and THEY will organise any response....

[Sabre 336]

Wow that is good to know.

[erice 327]

afaik

the sats are monitored all over the world

the hex id is the easiest thing to receive and the 'emergency' is picked up by high-level sats. then passed on to the country of origin as determined by the country specific id

(so for a product with an oz number it goes to the oz emergency centre, they then look up their registration record and try to call the registered telephone number to check if it's a false trigger) 

hopefully by the time this initial warning has been passed on a modern epirb/plb has managed to determine an accurate lat/long, (this can take 30min? to determine as the epirb, unlike a navigation gps has no internal clock, so no almanac of sat positions on that day + time to determine a fast and accurate fix) this lat/long data is then also transmitted and hopefully quickly passed on to the country specified by the hex id 

you can imagine how slow things can get if 1 country can't find the hex code in their database, or find they need to telephone another country's emergency services and then keep relaying the info they get  from the receiving nation

https://oceansignal.com/how-do-epirbs-and-plbs-operate/

1. The transmitter is activated, either automatically in a crash or after sinking, or manually by survivors of an emergency situation.
2. At least one satellite picks up the beacon's transmission.
3. The satellites transfer the beacon's signal to their respective ground control stations.
4. The ground stations process the signals and forward the data, including approximate location, to a national authority.
5. The national authority forwards the data to a rescue authority
6. The rescue authority uses its own receiving equipment afterwards to locate the beacon and commence its own rescue or recovery operations.

When one of the COSPAS-SARSAT satellites detects a beacon, the detection is passed to one of the program's approximately 30 Mission Control Centers, such as USMCC (in Suitland, Maryland), where the detected location and beacon details are used to determine which Rescue Coordination Center (for example, the U.S. Coast Guard's PACAREA RCC, in Alameda, California) to pass the alert to.^[10]

 

• A country code, which lets the worldwide COSPAS/SARSAT central authority identify the national authority responsible for the beacon.
• Embedded 15-Hex ID or 15-hex transmitted distress message, for example, 2024F72524FFBFF The hex ID is printed or stamped on the outside of the beacon and is hard-coded into its firmware. The 15-hex ID can only be reprogrammed by certified distress radiobeacon technicians. The national authority uses this number to look up phone numbers and other contact information for the beacon. This is crucial to handle the large number of false alarms generated by beacons.
•  
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_position-indicating_radiobeacon_station

[2flit 23]

WE just got a warrantee replacement of our EPIRB and OceanSignal could/was willing to  program it for whatever country we chose... New Zealand, Canada, or the USA.  BY the way... the ocean signal batteries are user replaceable on the E100G, and the new EPIRB1-Pro that ours was replaced with, They cost more originally but have 10-year/48Hr battery life, and $238 cost replacement, at leas this is what we found. (We are a Canadian registry boat in New Zealand)

 

Edited November 27, 2020 by 2flit
spelling

[Black Panther 656]

11 hours ago, erice said:

afaik

the sats are monitored all over the world. 

Please be aware that there are large tracts of the world's oceans where no one is coming   

[erice 327]

looks good at $400 for their basic epirb

ton of stockists in nz

https://oceansignal.com/stockists/

https://www.lusty-blundell.co.nz/search/results/5fc152dca83c8

[rossd 14]

After looking at battery replacement costs for some time i thought stuff it. So replaced the  batteries myself. Pretty simple as designed to be user opened for decommissioning. Batteries easily obtained in NZ $52 each and there are 2. New O ring off the shelf $2. $106 total parts Old batteries were way out of date but were the same if not slightly higher voltage than the new ones.

[vic008 11]

Warning, if couriering back for new batteries replacing, pull the old ones out yourself,otherwise you get charged for dangerous goods.

[ex Elly 51]

Thanks Rossd.  Where did you get the new batteries?