Which action should the GMDSS radio operator take in a Distress situation when embarking in survival craft?

(C). Switch on EPIRB and SART immediately and leave on.

The units have to be turned on manually. Their signals allow search and rescue services and other ships to receive the signals even if few miles away, depending on how high they are mounted.

An EPIRB that is registered will facilitate identification of the vessel.

For more information, please see Marine Insights article on What is An Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB)?

Also, see Marine Insights article on https://www.marineinsight.com/marine-safety/what-is-search-and-rescue-transponder-sart/

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Which of these would be vital to a GMDSS SAR situation in polar regions?

(D). COSPAS/SARSAT satellites to receive Distress Alerts and HF Voice for follow-on and SAR activity. See NOAA SARSAT System Overview

GOES satellites are weather satellites. See Wikipedia's article on GOES satellites

Inmarsat offers global mobile services, not Distress calls. See Wikipedia's article on Inmarsat

See NOAA SARSAT System Overview

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Which statement is NOT true regarding the COSPAS-SARSAT system?

(A). The position of the EPRIB is always transmitted in the outgoing transmission (unless the unit is a GPIRB).

COSPAS-SARSAT system does include:

• Signals received by low altitude, near-polar orbiting satellites are relayed to a ground receiving station (LUT).
• Doppler shift is used to locate the position of the EPIRB.
• EPIRBs are satellite beacons used as alerting & homing devices.

For overview of COSPAS-SARSAT, please see Wikipedia article on International Cospas-Sarsat

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Which statement is NOT true regarding the COSPAS-SARSAT system?

(B). May be used to transmit public correspondence.

COSPAS-SARSAT system does include:

• EPIRBs are satellite beacons used as alerting/locating devices.
• Locates Distress beacons transmitting on 406 MHz.
• Doppler shift is used to locate the beacons.

For overview of COSPAS-SARSAT, please see Wikipedia article on International Cospas-Sarsat

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What information is transmitted by a 406 MHz EPIRB alert?

(B). A unique Hexadecimal I.D. number.

EPIRB is the Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon

EPIRB transmits a UIN, Unique Identifier Number, which is permanently hard coded in each unit. The unique ID can be found on the outside of the unit printed on white label. This UIN is in Hexagonal digits. Both letters and digits are used to generate a 15 numbers unique identification number of the unit. EPIRB sends 3 groups of 5 characters, such as A2B3C5 34252 3B77A.

For more information, please see Marine Insights article on What is An Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB)?

Hexagonal Base 16 Numeric System
We operate normally in base 10 system, with 10 digits, and the 11th moves 10 to left plus one. Computers understand only 0 and 1 (on or off). Thus, computers operate on base 2 system. Hexadecimal system uses 16 digits. Because 16 is a multiple of 2, hex numbers are easily converted to base 2 numbers.

It is very easy to read a hex number, but it takes time to read a binary number. A hex number equals four binary digits. So, 00 to FF in hex is equivalent to 00000000 to 11111111.

See Wikipedia article on Hexadecimal

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Which statement is FALSE regarding the COSPAS-SARSAT system and EPIRB operations?

(C). The EPIRB's position and Hex I.D. is passed instantaneously to the RCC.

COSPAS-SARSAT system and EPIRB (Emergency position-indicating radio beacon) operations do consist of:

• The EPIRB's position is calculated by the system and passed to the MCC.

• The EPIRB transmits a unique Hex I.D. and vessel position that may be passed to the RCC.

• The EPIRB transmits a unique Hex I.D. that is passed to the RCC if it cannot be determined to be inadvertent by the MCC.

For overview of COSPAS-SARSAT, please see Wikipedia article on International Cospas-Sarsat

For more on EPIRB (Emergency position-indicating radio beacon), please see comprehensive info from National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, Publication No. 117, Radio Navigational Aids (Ctrl F and search on EPIRB) at EPIRB

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