Installation profile · Last updated 2026-08-07

Identify the instruments and the vessel

The installation profile is a sensor map. It records which instrument sits behind each channel of a VDR recording. For example, one channel is the gyro and another channel is the engine console. You copy the map from the ship's configuration sheet. Stingray then labels every channel with its instrument name, and reports each disagreement between the recording and the documents. The same editor also does a check of the vessel identity.

The sensor map applies to VDR recordings only. A voyage data recorder captures the bridge instruments of the ship as raw NMEA on these channels. Those instruments are the GPS, the gyro, the engine and the alarms. The profile identifies this own-ship sensor stream. A plain AIS recording carries vessel positions and identities, but it has no such channels and thus needs no profile. If your recording is AIS-only, this page does not apply to it.

A recording tags its sensor streams with anonymous tokens, for example 000a and 0013. No part of the file says which token is the gyro and which token is the engine console. The profile supplies that information. A provenance line then changes from ch 000a to Gyro compass · ch 000a (= 10). The raw token stays visible in that line. Stingray adds the instrument name next to the token.

Posture

Stingray reports disagreements and never corrects data. The profile is your transcription of the ship's documents. If it disagrees with the contents of the recording, Stingray reports the disagreement. Stingray does not select a side, relabel data, or resolve the disagreement automatically. A disagreement between the configuration and the wire is itself evidence.

1. The parts of a channel entry

One entry names one channel. Every entry needs two parts: channel and instrument. The other parts add more detail:

channele.g. 000a · or default

Enter the channel token exactly as the recording writes it. The decimal-and-hex difference from the decode rules applies here too: the CH-10 of the sheet is 000a in the recording. Some recordings have no channel labels (salvage mode, bare NMEA). Such a recording puts all the data into one stream. Profile that stream under default.

instrumente.g. Gyro compass

The name of the device, in your own words. Stingray uses this name for the channel everywhere: drawer provenance lines, decode-table headers, and load-report warnings.

modele.g. JRC JLR-7800

The manufacturer and the model, if the sheet states them. This field is for display only. It is useful if a report must name the exact unit.

expected sentencese.g. GGA · VTG

The sentence types that the configuration gives for this channel. If you fill in this field, Stingray does the configuration-against-recording check below. If you leave it empty, the entry stays a name only.

notese.g. per the 2021 RoC

Any text that you must remember: a document page, a caveat, or a date.

The profile is in the same Decode Tables editor as the rules. The editor shows one row per channel. The rows are the union of the channels in the recording and the channels in your profile. Thus a channel that the configuration states, but the recording never carries, also gets a row. The silence of that channel stays visible.

2. Configuration against the recording

If you fill in the expected sentences, Stingray compares the claims of the configuration with the contents of each channel. Stingray compares in both directions and reports these findings:

Mismatch. The configuration gives sentence types for a channel, and the recording disagrees. An expected sentence is absent from the recording, or the recording carries types that the configuration does not name. Stingray states both halves.
Unprofiled. A channel carries data in the recording, but it has no entry in the profile. No named instrument is behind that data.
Silent. A channel in the profile sent nothing in this recording. The cause can be a dead wire or an instrument with no power. The recording can also miss the active period of that channel.
No channel metadata. Salvaged recordings and bare recordings carry no channel identity at all. Stingray cannot evaluate the per-channel claims. Stingray reports this fact one time, and does not raise a false alarm for each entry.

Each finding appears on the row of its own channel in the editor, in the findings amber. No finding has a fix-it button. See the posture above.

The profile can also carry the date of the configuration document. Stingray shows an amber caveat if the configuration is more than one year older than the recording. Stingray also shows the caveat if the configuration has a date after the recording. A refit is possible in one year. The caveat is a prompt to do a check. It is not a statement that the profile is invalid.

3. Vessel identity checks

The same configuration sheet names the vessel: the MMSI, the IMO number, and the call sign. Enter these values in the Vessel identity section of the editor. Stingray then cross-checks them against the transmissions in the recording. These transmissions are the AIS broadcasts and the static data of the own ship. Stingray checks:

The MMSI. Stingray compares it with the MMSI in the own-ship AIS transmissions (AIVDO).
The IMO number and the call sign. Stingray compares them with the AIS static data of the own ship.
The IMO check digit. The IMO number contains its own check digit. Stingray calculates the check digit on both sides. Thus arithmetic finds a transcription error in the sheet or in the transmitter.

IMO number self-check (IMO res. A.1078)

d₁·7 + d₂·6 + d₃·5 + d₄·4 + d₅·3 + d₆·2 ≡ d₇ (mod 10)

9074729: 9·7 + 0·6 + 7·5 + 4·4 + 7·3 + 2·2 = 139 → last digit 9 ✓

The identity checks report agreement and disagreement. The channel findings report disagreement only. An investigator needs the sentence “config MMSI confirmed by the recording”. Stingray shows a match in the confirmed-data blue and a problem in the findings amber. Some fields have no data for a comparison, because the recording has no AIVDO or no static data. Stingray reports that it cannot do the check on these fields, and does not omit them.

The MMSI and the IMO are different

An MMSI identifies a transmitter, and an operator can reprogram it. An IMO number identifies the hull, and it never changes. A recording can transmit an identity that disagrees with the ship's documents. This is not a data error to correct. It can be the finding.

4. Draft the profile from the configuration sheet

The same Claude draft that pre-fills the decode rules also returns the channel entries, the configuration date, and the vessel identity. Claude returns only what the uploaded document states. Claude infers nothing from general knowledge of a ship. The draft arrives through the same review-then-replace confirmation. The confirmation states exactly what Stingray sets, before you adopt any part of it.