The traditional method of providing an acoustic reference position to a Dynamic Positioning System (DPS) using USBL-derived beacon positions, is to simply send that beacon’s position telegram.

Sometimes, the DPS will accept the telegram configured as a Mobile beacon, as shown below.

More often, the beacon is assigned as Fixed in order to be accepted, and used as a DP reference.

Having more than one reference beacon is sometimes useful.

In this example, the telegram sent to the DPS will look something like this.

However, some DPS Desks do not accept beacon references as they require the vessel reference.

In this case, you would configure the telegram as follows:

The reference beacon is selected from the Frame of Reference drop-down list.

In this example, the telegram sent to the DPS will look something like this:

The 02 after df defines a Message 2, or Ship telegram.