On Nov 17, 9:05*am, Frogwatch wrote:
In prep for my upcoming sailing trip, I bought a new battery for my
406 Mhz EPIRB and ran thru the self test sequence, IT FAILED. *This
insanely expensive piece of equipment does not work? *This coulda
killed me. *I sent it via next day mail to the place here in FL for
examination and they say they might have to send it back to England
costing nearly $300. *Like Hell.
Options........hmmm. *There is something new out there called SPOT.
For $150, one can buy a beacon that when activated sends a signal to a
satellite (I think it must use the Iridium network) and that sends a
signal to some emergency station with your GPS location. *Am not sure
how this differs from EPIRB.
It has other features too. *One can use it to send a recorded message
back to home saying "I am ok, my position is........". *It can also
send a signal back home so someone can track your path on Google
Earth. *It does require a subscription service of $100/yr.
Anybody know about these things?


You can gamble on some things, but not your EPIRB.
Go get a new Simrad
* 406MHz Distress Alert with 121.5MHz Homing Beacon
* Non-Hazardous Battery for easy, low cost transportation
* Five year battery life

Activation Method
Water

Battery Replacement (Years)
5

Built-In Strobe
Yes

Category
I

Floats
Yes

Frequency
406/121

GPS Enabled
No

Operational Life (Hours)
48

Note ...it says life 48 hrs, but most likely you will get 5-6 days.

Joe