subject: Ensure Boating Safety with Marine Electronics [print this page] Ensure Boating Safety with Marine Electronics
If you operate a craft on the water, then safety should be your primary concern. To protect yourself and others and maintain the highest standard of safety, you should take advantage of marine electronics and other forms of technology that allow you to find out where you are and allow others to find you. A strobe light is a great example of a piece of equipment that really helps. Outdoor enthusiasts of all stripes especially boaters use strobe lights as a way of signaling for help if necessary, in conjunction with flares. In fact, the Coast Guard requires the use of either a strobe light or a flare to use in the event that someone falls overboard. When shopping for these devices, you want to find those that are designed for maritime use, and are waterproof and designed to activate when the piece of equipment enters the water.
It also helps to find a strobe light that has a switch designed to be operated even when you have gloves on. Jotron and ACR Electronics are two companies who offer strobe lights for marine use, beginning as low as $20.
Lights that are fixed on your watercraft like a halogen light that is battery operated can also assist in increasing your safety at sea. These powerful lights can illuminate obstacles and alert others of your presence.
There are also many additional discount marine electronics that are worth a look. These include tracking devices that work with GPS technology to deliver your exact whereabouts to rescue personnel. A personal locator beacon is one example of these devices; it is small and compact and uses a COSPAS SARSAT comm system that is specifically engineered for search and rescue. One big advantage of one of these beacons is that it will transmit signals no matter the conditions or where you may be. A strobe light, by contrast, is limited by conditions and distance.
The Revere FastFind is a personal beacon with a battery that lasts for five years that can put out signals for a full day. It can also withstand water immersion up to 32 feet in depth.
A survival radio and a search light are also highly recommended and have become crucial marine electronics devices for safety. ACR makes a survival craft radio which floats and picks up all simplex channels available, especially weather. It's compact and lightweight size also allows you to store it in your watercraft with ease. Plus, the yellow casing is easy to see.
Search lights are frequently used by search and rescue personnel because they offer powerful illumination during nighttime operations. They also employ night-vision equipment and thermal imagery devices that can "see" into the night, no matter what time of night or how foggy it may be. These are particularly handy when searching for lost individuals, but can also be used to spot obstacles.
