3169: EPIRBs

EPIRBs

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Title text: 'Oh no, the box is drifting out into the harbor!' 'Yeah, I wouldn't worry about losing it.'

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Explanation

This is one of 52 incomplete explanations: This page was created BY AN UNATTENDED DISTRESS BEACON. Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

An emergency position-indicating radiobeacon (EPIRB) is a maritime safety device that, when it comes in contact with water, sends a distress signal via satellite. This signal is detected by search and rescue organizations such as the United States Coast Guard so that they can dispatch a rescue team. An EPIRB's purpose is to automatically notify such authorities of emergencies at sea, such as a ship sinking when it is out of range of normal radio communications and/or where those affected may not be able to reliably communicate their plight and correct location.

In the comic Megan and Cueball accidentally drop a box containing 1,600 EPIRBs into the water while moving it across a gangway between a ship and a dock. Because EPIRBs automatically activate when immersed in water, and apparently the crate contains fully enabled units not otherwise held within waterproof packaging, the result would be 1,600 simultaneous signals of a ship sinking. The text beneath the comic is them calling the Coast Guard to apologize for the overwhelming flood of signals. It appears this is not the first such call they have made, though it is unclear whether they have called multiple times to apologise for the same incident, or they are habitually careless in their handling of these packages.

The automatic nature of EPIRBs could allow such an overload if a package of them were dropped in water, and it would cause difficulty for a search and rescue group to receive so many signals at once. Not only that, but Cueball and Megan would likely be fired for gross negligence, causing severe financial penalties (which can be as much as $5,000 an hour for rescue assets, potentially reaching hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars for a major incident), safety violations, disruption of operations and legal consequences like significant civil fines and even criminal penalties if the actions were deemed wilful or due to a reckless disregard for safety and the law.

While the Coast Guard may see the 1,600 simultaneous signals at the same geographic location and conclude that it was a likely unintended activation, they still have a bias for action and would begin mobilizing rescue assets until they could verify the false alarm through on-scene verification or successful contact with the owner and "stand down" the full search and rescue response. In reality, though, EPIRBs usually require some sort of pre-activation and would not be in an operable state when packaged in transit and prior to sale or installation on a vessel.

The title text notes that, because EPIRBs continuously broadcast their location (particularly modern GPIRBs with a GPS feature to provide an actual location and not just a signal to home in on), there is no reason to worry about the box floating out of the harbor and getting lost, because (even if it does float out of the harbor) there is no risk of "losing" it - there will be 1,600 separate signals indicating where to recover the box.

Transcript

[Megan and Cueball are on a plank between the edge of a ship and the edge of a dock. Only part of the ship can be seen to the left and on the right a single wooden pole can be seen supporting the dock. Megan is near the ship and Cueball near the dock, and there is a rolling cart between them. A large box is tumbling through the air beneath the plank, evidently having fallen off the cart. The side of the box contains a picture of an image of an EPIRB. The front of the box (facing the reader) has text on it:]

EPIRB

Water-activated distress beacons

1600 CT

[Caption below the panel:]

"Hello, Coast Guard? We'd like to apologize once again for the 1,600 simultaneous false alarms this morning..."

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Discussion

First comment. >"would not be in an operable state when packaged in transit" .... I dunno EPIRBs, but EZ-Pass sent my transponder "live", it tracked ALL over NYcity (I never go there), and I got bills for like 13 bridges, tunnels, expressways. --PRR (talk) 23:44, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

This also happened to me. At one point I needed a replacement for my EZ-Pass unit and managed to track the route it followed through NYC over the several monitored bridges the shipment crossed. Luckily the CS when I called, immediately recognized what had happened. MAP (talk) 06:44, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

Is the caption implying that they've apologized multiple times for the same incident or that there have heen multiple incidents of this nature? The haphazardous unloading procedure shown makes me think it's the latter. 64.114.211.89 00:33, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

Because of some people I have known to well I would ship the items as fully operational and trust the sandwich ziplock bags I put them in to keep sneezes off. I would Not trust the end user to install them. It would suck to be the emergency responder for those 1600 {within whatever distance they are precise enough to show} screams for help:

I recall a 911 operator who hung up on a surgical or something nurse who was reporting that her husband was having a heart attack because caller was not upset so obviously fake. IIRC the caller lost her husband and quite calmly (as must be for her job) helped her lawyers hurt that 911 center and every thing associated with it so badly that all 911 calls get a response nowadays.four tildas.just a sec 2607:FB91:1649:8047:48AF:AA8B:AEFE:DAD2 05:08, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

"...drifting out into the harbor!" Is the ship not already in the harbor? I really dislike that use of "out into", it makes little sense. SDSpivey (talk) 01:51, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

It depends upon your interpretation of the (unseen) port in question.

The harbour might just be considered the wide-open area, landward of any (natural or constructed) harbour-wall. Where the ship is, is at a dock-wall, might (together with the adjacent dock) be bounding a finger (one of several?) of waterway that's landward even of the primary open 'harbour' area, functionally considered different as a dock-basin.

Or, even simpler (by visual, if not words), the crate drops between ship and dock-wall, where the ship itself forms the boundary from the 'open harbour' that (without the ship) normally goes to the sea-wall. But, here, the possibility of the crate being washed around the end of the ship and being in the open harbour where you find other boats sailing/motoring through (or tied up to buoys, floating jetties, etc) is "...drifting out into the harbour". A opposed to being within easy reach to retrieve, once you've found the right harbourside equipment.

Unless it's been changed, since I last read it, the Explanation also had it rephrased as drifting out of the harbour (i.e. into the open sea, river, estuary or whatever-it's-a-harbour-off-of), though I had consciously decided not to change that. As it was functionally the logical end-result. 82.132.236.196 03:34, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

If I have a bobcat sequestered in a room, waiting for a cardboard box and duct tape to be delivered, and someone accidentally opens the door, would it not be correct to say it is now out and into the house despite the fact that it was within the house before escaping the room? Another way to look at it would be a shortening of 'Oh no, the box is drifting out (of the port and) into (a part of) the harbor (that isn't the port)!', as both the speaker and listener both understand the context and origin of the box. 64.114.211.37 04:09, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

So this comic is inadvertently based on a true story.

EPIRB stands for "Electronic Position Indicating Radio Beacon". I know because I used to work the company that makes them, though in a different assembly line. One day the production manager decided to give us all a chewing out.

It turns out due to poor quality control, around 1000 EPIRBs had shipped with faulty activators, and triggered unprompted.

Indeed, the coastguard were NOT amused. 163.116.177.50 09:06, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

I understand the 1600 CT written at the box indicates that there is 1600 EPIRBs in it. But I'm not native English speaker and could not just find it by searching. Is CT an abbreviation for content? --Kynde (talk) 09:18, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

Ah I can now answer myself, as someone has actually already put in this link to the meaning of CT, and here it is stated that:
ct followed by a number means the number of items contained in a package (e.g. zucchini 3 ct).
Thanks for the link :-) --Kynde (talk) 09:22, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

Although 3 zucchini would cause rather less alarm to the Coastguard^{[citation needed]} 82.13.184.33 09:24, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

I believe it is short for 'count' 62.220.2.194 09:40, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

Although, note, that it says that "ct followed by a number" is that thing, then gives the number followed by "ct" as example. ;) But that's just a minor problem with the Wikipedia page, and I'm less likely to be picky with that than one on this site! 2.98.65.8 14:44, 18 November 2025 (UTC) (Well, as long as Cloudflare isn't being buggy...)

I'm assuming that you too were experiencing cloudflare errors in the Omaha server? --DollarStoreBa'al^Converse 15:05, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

It was more worldwide than that. From my own experience, it took out connections to Cloudflare-served services here in the UK (multiple local gateways), and it looked to be worldwide. I haven't seen a full explanation yet, but perhaps closer to "update error" than "mass DDos/hack".

I'd not actual been hit by the recent AWS error, not long ago, nor the CrowdStrike thing before that, seemingly not using anything that relied on those working. But a handful of the places I do use seem to be behind CF. I only previously knew of this site, due to prior (wiki-side) errors, but suddenly I was unable to access TVTropes, etc, each now revealing themselves as using upon CF's services. (Meh... it happens. As long as CF knows how to stop it reoccuring in future.) 82.132.238.236 16:44, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, here I was reading, edited the above (not in Omaha) and then found myself unable to save it, until a little over three hours later.

From all that I've seen, it was down to a common reference file getting too big. Whether for the file-system or just for the code trying to check it, I don't know. 2.98.65.8 23:54, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

"ct" is an abbreviation for count. You can find the relevant definition here, given as sense 4 of the noun(1) entry: "the total number of individual things in a given unit". 2601:647:c182:b070:69db:c392:2a5e:8d0d (talk) 10:44, 21 November 2025 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Modern EPIRBs have a digital identity which they broadcast - unlike their archaic ancestors which are no longer tracked. The old ones last century just basically all broadcast an emergency tone so you can't tell one from another. These identities map to an entry in a database, which presumably will be blank for a brand new EPIRB. Outfits like a Coast Guard will have access to the database and can thus see the 1600 beacons in the comic are probably unused. You're supposed to register contact details in the database, obviously if you need rescuing then your phone number is unlikely to be useful, but it can have details of friends and family back home who'll be able to verify that you're overdue, or at least your intent and purpose which justifies activation of the rescue assets. Registering in many countries is mandatory, and even if it's not mandatory for you it's a good idea. COSPAS SARSAT (the service EPIRBs are sending messages to) is said to "Take the search out of Search & Rescue" because of the accuracy of the position data. --2001:8B0:FBB0:1247:1B24:1C24:1D24:714 19:13, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

Another question is if the system is able to decode 1600 buoys transmitting at the same time. My guess is that coastguard would receive an alarm, but would only be able to decode data from few buoys transmitting. 109.81.171.206 19:22, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

AFAICT, system can only support cca 100 beacons at the same time. Quoting siranah.de/html/sail051c.htm

>>> Typical rescue beacon radios transmit a 5 watt signal for 0.5 second once every 50 seconds. ... The 406-MHz data channel is 170 kHz wide and centred at 406.05 MHz. On this channel, a burst of digital data is transmitted with a bit rate of 400 bps using phase modulation. Each transmission consists of a 160 ms CW preamble followed by a data message. The data message is either a 112-bit "short" message (280 ms) or a 144-bit "long" message (360 ms) both including full identification and position information. >>>

So, if you dropped around 100 beacons, there would be chance of them identifying eventually. With 1000 beacons, they would be cca 10 devices transmitting at the same time, all the time, and I doubt that would allow successful transmission. 109.81.171.206 19:36, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

Am I missing something? Not being a native speaker I ask: do the words "once again" refer to any prior incident of the same sort? 2001:16B8:A849:D00:505C:3DD5:355A:EFF3 20:50, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

saying "...apologize for 'the' 1,600 simultaneous false alarms 'this morning'" makes it clear they have already apologized for this specific event. It doesn't imply any previous false alarms. 173.88.137.222 21:32, 18 November 2025

It may refer to that morning's dropping of a similar box. "We'd like to apologise once again for [...], and now we also need to apologise for this latest incident... if you're not already getting 1600 more distress signals, you'll definitely start to be getting them as soon as the water soaks into the crate." 2.98.65.8 00:05, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

"We apologised yesterday for the box we dropped then, and now we'd like to apologise once again for the one we dropped this morning." 82.13.184.33 09:20, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

The Trivia section here describes a real case of Citogenesis ! 100.1.214.162 (talk) 22:58, 19 November 2025 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

We should tag the comic. That's hilarious! 216.221.83.168 16:01, 4 December 2025 (UTC)
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