EPIRB and SART

EPIRB has a self release mechanism, it would release itself from a sinking ship, at a predetermined depth & auto emit distress message. Or it can be thrown overboard manually when abandoning vessel.

SART is carried on the lifeboat after launching, to enable rescue vessel to locate survivors.

Hi, Joshi! Thanks for the reply! Do you think it will be better if EPIRB have a Radar Transponder function and the SART have a Distress message sending function?

Our opinion will not influence maritime regulation. IMO & all sovereign states & maritime industry having deliberated all issues, in their wisdom, made these specs.

That is true, anyway thanks for the help!

EPIRB is dead simple. It will work when required. Desirable simplicity. Works anywhere. Received with ordinary radio comms apparatus.

Trouble with a radar transponder is it has to be within RADAR range. The call for help is not always conveniently located. Working on the sea's surface in amongst the chop is a less than ideal environment.

Independent devices also provide a level of redundancy. One of them should work.

You know, many of us are interested, but we don't all know what the acronyms mean. Spell it out once for us.

Here it is:

GMDSS-- Global Maritime Distress Safety System

EPIRB-- Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon

SART-- Search and Rescue Transponder

There might be a few factors at play:

1 - size of the equipment

2 - battery life that can sustain both functions

3 - cost

When I think about the function you want this combined unit to perform, I think about my cell phone. As a phone by itself the batter can last several hours, however, when I'm using its 4G for internet or have the wifi setting turned on or have the GPS function turned on, that battery doesn't last very long.

My GPS on my cell phone tells me precisly when I need to take an exit and knows when I've made a wrong turn and gives me instructions to get back on course. If it's that accurate on my Android Smartphone, then they can surely make one float in the water, that is waterproof, set it to transmit periodically to save battery life and give a rescue vessel enough information to give course corrections, and do it cheaply. Don't really need all that other stuff. GPS can give that information at a far greater range.

When I was in the Navy, from 1981 to 1992, we had 4 GPS satilites up, we had to wait 16 hours before getting a window to use GPS, and we were supposed to try and use it when conducting minesweeping operations, however the Loran C ISS/Hyperfix was far more accurate, it had us navigation to within a 3 yards of our actual position, where as on the open ocean a sea going vessel was happy if they could plot their position and be within 1/2 nautical mile.

Today more GPS satilites are in the air.

Hi, it's quite understandable, thank you!