Onboard Distress Alarm ?

[Papabrer]

I have a red box mounted on the side of the sink in my forward berth. It is labeled DISTRESS and has a switch on the right had side that says "Push and hold for 6 seconds". Picture attached for reference. Have not pressed the button but would like to know what this is and what it does if anyone might know.

 

[Skybolt]

Never actually seen one before, but it's an old school satellite distress module.

ABB Nera Saturn Distress alarm

Telecompaper

Telecompaper - Telecom news and research

www.telecompaper.com

 

[Yendor]

So that would have been the precursor to an EPIRB?

 

[Skybolt]

So that would have been the precursor to an EPERB?

EPIRB's have been around since the 50's being used by the military, then the 70's commercially. Somewhere late 80's they became available for the private boating sector and used world wide.

At the same time sat communications were being developed but were too costly and needed to be aligned too precisely to make any sense as an emergency beacon.

The way an EPIRB works is, it uses a Doppler satellite detectable radio signal. They don't actually "talk" to a satellite but are detected by the SARSAT network of satellites. The EPIRB signal contains gps location in it that the sat's then communicate with ground stations.

 

[Yendor]

Thanks for taking the time to compose such a response.
I'd have had to hunt for a day to arrive at all that, and likely still wouldn't have the understanding you've supplied in the time it took you to write that.
Thank you Sir, very much.

 

[Papabrer]

Great information thanks very much. I guess I will not press the button since we have EPIRB onboard.

 

[Skybolt]

Great information thanks very much. I guess I will not press the button since we have EPIRB onboard.

That is distress button thing is most likely not in use. That is/was connected to a bigger system that was sat based. The EPIRB should be standalone and not interfaced with that button. I would trace the wires and see where it leads.

What EPIRB do you have? Or post a pic and we can verify things for you.