StacksVerified U.S. regulatory reference

50 CFR §600.1503

Verified against eCFR.gov as of June 20, 2026View official text on eCFR.gov ↗
Unless otherwise specified, this subsection applies to all VMS units, MCSs and bundles. Units that can operate as both an EMTU and EMTU-C must meet the requirements for both an EMTU and an EMTU-C in order to gain type-approval as both. To be type-approved in any given fishery, a VMS unit must also meet any additional positioning information as required by the applicable VMS regulations and requirements in effect for each fishery or region for which the type-approval applies. The VMS unit must meet the following requirements:
  1. (a)Transmit all automatically-generated position reports, for vessels managed individually or grouped by fleet, that meet the latency requirement under § 600.1504.
  2. (b)When powered up, must automatically re-establish its position reporting function without manual intervention.
  3. (c)Position reports must contain all of the following:
    1. (1)Unique identification of an EMTU/EMTU-C and clear indication if the unit is an EMTU-C.
    2. (2)Date (year/month/day with century in the year) and time stamp (GMT) of the position fix.
    3. (3)Date (year/month/day with century in the year) and time stamp (GMT) that the EMTU-C position report was sent from the EMTU-C.
    4. (4)Position fixed latitude and longitude, including the hemisphere of each, which comply with the following requirements:
      1. (i)The position fix precision must be to the decimal minute hundredths.
      2. (ii)Accuracy of the reported position must be within 100 meters (328.1 ft).
  4. (d)An EMTU/EMTU-C must have the ability to: (1) Store 1,000 position fixes in local, non-volatile memory.
    1. (2)Allow for defining variable reporting intervals between 5 minutes and 24 hours.
    2. (3)Allow for changes in reporting intervals remotely and only by authorized users.
  5. (e)An EMTU/EMTU-C must generate specially identified position reports upon:
    1. (1)Antenna disconnection.
    2. (2)Loss of positioning reference signals.
    3. (3)Security events, power-up, power down, and other status data.
    4. (4)A request for EMTU/EMTU-C status information such as configuration of programming and reporting intervals.
    5. (5)The EMTUs loss of the mobile communications signals.
    6. (6)An EMTU must generate a specially identified position report upon the vessel crossing of a pre-defined geographic boundary.