This week we were asked to help sort out a small problem on the two fast rescue boats that will support the new Viking Grace passenger and car ferry that will operate between Turku (Finland) and Stockholm (Sweden) in the Baltic. These fast rescue boats are fitted with our AIT2000 Class B Transonpders, so that they can be tracked from the ferry but they needed to have MMSI numbers starting with 98xxxxxxx.
Normally Class B Transponders have an MMSI number within a pre-defined range 2xxxxxxxx to 7xxxxxxxx and our AIT2000 would check that an MMSI number was within this range prior to storing it. This was the first time that we had been asked for an MMSI number outside of this range but fortunately it was quite easy to change and a quick update of the AIT2000 to the latest firmware to V1.7, allowed the 98xxxxxxx numbers to be programmed and a solution was found.
A big thank you to Joni Syrja the engineer in Finland who was trying to commission the systems and who performed the actual updates on the AIT2000s.
