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Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from house stuff Works dot com

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Speaker 1: where smart happens. Hi Am Marshall Brain with today's question,

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Speaker 1: how does an e P I r B distress radio work?

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Speaker 1: E P I r B stands for Emergency Position indicating

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Speaker 1: Radio beacon and e P I RB is meant to

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Speaker 1: help rescuers locate you in an emergency situation, and these

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Speaker 1: radios have saved many lives since their creation in the

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Speaker 1: nineties seventies. Voters are the main users of e P

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Speaker 1: I r B s. A modern e P I r

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Speaker 1: B is a sophisticated device that contains a five watt

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Speaker 1: transmitter operating at four hundred and six megaherts, a quarter

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Speaker 1: wat radio transmitter operating at one one point five megaherts,

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Speaker 1: and optionally a GPS receiver. Once activated, both of the

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Speaker 1: radio start trans submitting approximately two thousand miles or thirty

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Speaker 1: nine thousand kilometers up in space. A GOES weather satellite

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Speaker 1: in a geosynchronous orbit can detect the four hundred six

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Speaker 1: megahurt signal. Embedded in that signal is a unique serial number,

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Speaker 1: and if the unit is equipped with a GPS receiver,

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Speaker 1: the exact location of the radio is conveyed in the

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Speaker 1: signal as well. If the e p I r B

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Speaker 1: is properly registered, the serial number lets the coast Guard

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Speaker 1: know who owns that e p I r B. Rescuers

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Speaker 1: and planes or boats can home in on the e

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Speaker 1: p I r B using either the four hundred six

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Speaker 1: or the one point five megahurt signals. Older e p

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Speaker 1: I rbs did not contain the GPS receiver, so the

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Speaker 1: Goes satellite received only a serial number to locate the

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Speaker 1: e p I r B. Another set of satellites orbiting

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Speaker 1: the planet in low polar orbit could pick up the

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Speaker 1: signal as it passed overhead. This would give a rough

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Speaker 1: fix on the location, but it took several hours for

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Speaker 1: the satellite to come into range. For more on this

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Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff Works dot com.