Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
The analogy breaks down. The computer does listen to all the transmitters, because they are all broadcasting on the same frequency. The computer has to decode everything it hears, but only pays attention the one signal that matches its SN with the SN it is interested in.Transmitter = radio station.
Serial number = what channel it is tuned to
Shearwater = radio
Programming the shearwater with the serial number of the transmitter (pairing, linking, matching, connecting, whatever you want to call it) is just telling the Shearwater what transmitter to listen to. You don't listen to all the radio stations at the same time, you tune into a single one and listen to that.
Actually, it was not answered “perfectly” or the OP would not have had to make post #3…. Regardless of the correct technical term, one has to enter a code to associate each transmitter to each computer or you won’t get the data. To me that is linking, technopolice be damned…This was answered perfectly in post #2. In true SB style, some feigned didactism managed to drag the post count to double figures.
The problem with "pairing" is that it most often is used for BT connections to set up a rwo-way link. So it's connotations are wrong for the broadcast-receive system.The word you are looking for is pairing.