Sync'd buoy lights

[dgadee]

Just noticed out my window that green and red lights on two sets of buoys are now flashing in sync. How do they do that? Wireless? Why bother?

 

[Elessar]

Just noticed out my window that green and red lights on two sets of buoys are now flashing in sync. How do they do that? Wireless? Why bother?

The only ones they say are synced are the blue/yellow flashes of the emergency wreck buoys. Radio linked I guess. Doubt it's expensive but unless charted and publicised, then definitely pointless. Might be handy in a busy area, buoy wise to make a channel clearer I guess.

 

[GHA]

Gps is used for the timing now apparently.

There was a trial at the swale entrance a while ago.
www.iala-aism.org/iala/publications/documentspdf/doc_241_eng.pdf

Where did you see them?

 

[johnalison]

We visited Trinity House a year or two ago and we saw some simulations of synchronised buoys that they were trialling. The results looked spectacular and made a river entrance look like a motorway.

 

[lpdsn]

The lights in Donaghadee Sound are synched. I found it made identifying the buoys harder and would have found it awkward if I didn't know the sound well.

What happens is that all the buoys flash together, then for the second flash just a pair flash together, virtually impossible to correlate the second flash to the first, to confirm which is which.

Might work if the buoys are nicely spaced up a river and you're just aiming at the closest, but when you're looking at a group of buoys at the south end of Donaghadee Sd in order to guide you through the unlit part it is pretty useless.


PS I'm guessing the OP is based near Donaghadee from his user name, so we're probably talking about the same buoys.

 

[Bilgediver]

The only ones they say are synced are the blue/yellow flashes of the emergency wreck buoys. Radio linked I guess. Doubt it's expensive but unless charted and publicised, then definitely pointless. Might be handy in a busy area, buoy wise to make a channel clearer I guess.

Latest NTM for The Forth shows a number of buoys will be synced in future.

 

[dgadee]

The lights in Donaghadee Sound are synched. I found it made identifying the buoys harder and would have found it awkward if I didn't know the sound well.

What happens is that all the buoys flash together, then for the second flash just a pair flash together, virtually impossible to correlate the second flash to the first, to confirm which is which.

Might work if the buoys are nicely spaced up a river and you're just aiming at the closest, but when you're looking at a group of buoys at the south end of Donaghadee Sd in order to guide you through the unlit part it is pretty useless.


PS I'm guessing the OP is based near Donaghadee from his user name, so we're probably talking about the same buoys.

We are indeed. It was my daughter who noticed it and I said it must be an optical illusion that they seemed to flash regularly together. Then I looked myself.

 

[nigel1]

GPS time signal

http://www.hydrosphere.co.uk/products-services/ais-monitoring/vega-vsu-29/