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EPIRBs, PLBs, DSCs, and Why Your Boat Needs Them

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Written by guest writer Brian Kearin You’re a hundred miles offshore and your boat is rapidly taking on water. You reach for your boat’s VHF and broadcast a desperate mayday call with your position. As you don your lifejacket and crawl into your boat’s life raft you think of that last mayday call you made, did anyone hear it? Did your radio have the range to reach the Coast Guard station on shore? Are there any other boats around who may have heard it? It’s a scenario we all hope to never find ourselves in. However far too many boaters are almost entirely reliant on their boat’s VHF radio or worse - their cell phone - for emergency communications. While your boat’s radio is a vital piece of equipment, both for regular use and in emergencies, it has its limitations. In the scenario above, range is limited and dependent on there being someone in range who happens to be monitoring the channel you’re broadcasting on. Additionally, each broadcast is done manually meaning you hav...