Communications: electrical – Condition responsive indicating system – With particular coupling link
Patent
1996-08-21
1998-10-06
Crosland, Donnie L.
Communications: electrical
Condition responsive indicating system
With particular coupling link
3409322, 340984, 34082554, 34082531, 34072534, G08B 108, H04Q 700
Patent
active
058183353
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The invention concerns a process to protect the ownership of watercraft.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The term "watercraft" is understood here to include particularly, but not exclusively, sailboats, power gliders or motor yachts, wherein a "spatially limited area," is for example a harbor with an entrance and an exit, for example a marina. The stationary transmitting/receiving unit (called a "T/R unit" below) belonging to the marina can be positioned, for example, on one of the pier heads bordering the harbor entrance and exit, and the electromagnetic sector emitted by the stationary T/R unit can be directed at the opposite pier head, wherein everything entering the harbor must pass through this electromagnetic sector. The term "protect ownership" here is taken to mean protect said watercraft from unauthorized use.
The unauthorized use of sailboats, power gliders and motor yachts without the authorization of the boat owner, as well as total loss of the watercraft due to organized theft, represent a major, increasing problem for boat owners. The long absence of the boat owner, the inability of very large marinas to oversee and forced anonymity favor unauthorized use of sailboats and motor yachts, which are increasingly being "borrowed" or stolen, without the owner's knowledge. Unauthorized use is only discovered when the owner discovers the loss of his yacht on site. Yachts illegally borrowed are frequently found after use at another site where anonymity in turn ensures that discovery of illegal use takes a very long time. Investigations into the perpetrators are usually not very successful due to the time factor, since there are frequently several weeks between the time the yacht was stolen and when the theft was discovered. Organized thieves thus have enough time to repaint and refit the boat and thus neutralize it.
To deal with this problem, the known automobile alarm systems are also used for sailboats and motor yachts. But the problem here is that the yachts are frequently not used for weeks, and most of the time the boat owner lives not near the marina, but far away from it. If the yacht is broken into, the alarm system goes off, and the perpetrators take off. Since the boat owner is most often not directly involved with the alarm and other people--if present at all--generally don't bother much with such alarms, these known alarm systems are not very effective. Moreover, these alarm systems have a relatively high false-alarm rate, which can disturb the peace in the marina. This sometimes forces the boat owner to turn off the alarm system.
FR-A-2-587-664 describes a device to protect ownership of watercraft that are in a spatially limited area, with a stationary T/R unit and a T/R unit onboard the craft, and with a stationary photoelectric cell and Doppler radar, which trigger the stationary T/R unit to send out a query signal. The watercarft receives an identification signal, but no additional code, so no "branding" of a stolen craft is possible, and no identification of illegal use when it sails into a foreign harbor or on the high seas.
FR-A-2-593-306 describes a process to protect the ownership of watercraft which is very similar to the process in FR-2-587-664. But this known process goes one step further, since the response signal beamed out by the watercraft consists of a basic code and an additional code (authorization code). In any case, in these known processes, there is no retransmission of a "branded" code, so illegally used craft cannot be identified when they sail into a foreign harbor or on the high seas.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The task of this invention is to specify a process to protect the ownership of watercraft, especially sailing yachts and motor yachts, that is active only when they sail out of a marina without authorization and that informs the owner or a hired organization immediately and effectively of illegal use.
This task is solved by a process to protect the ownership of watercraft with the features in the main claim.
With the process of the invention, incoming and o
REFERENCES:
patent: 4477809 (1984-10-01), Bose
patent: 5373282 (1994-12-01), Carter
patent: 5432515 (1995-07-01), O'Conner
Pannen Torsten
Rinsch Hartmut
Crosland Donnie L.
Rinsch Hartmut
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