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

In article
,
Joe wrote:

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

Fully agreed with except:
Get the one *WITH GPS*, EG50 Auto or EG50 Man.

http://www.simrad-yachting.com/Products/Safety/

Time to relay position to MRCCs and initiate SAR response:

with GPS 5 minutes, anytime, anywhere

without GPS 50 minutes average, 100 minutes worst case
add another 100 minutes if you do not register your EPIRB (free) because
a SAR response will then only happen after the second pass.
LEOSAR satellites used to doppler measure the position circle the earth
every 100 minutes

Precision of localization:
with GPS to 0.05 nm, without to 2.6 nm

And by all means avoid the old style 121.5 MHz ONLY beacons as they are
out of service by 2009 because of too many false alarms.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distress_radiobeacon

An EPIRB with GPS can be had from USD 500 up.

And get VHF too - priceless to talk to and guide the helicopter
searching for you as reported about a month ago in this newsgroup.
It is not easy to locate a liferaft in less than ideal conditions.

HTH

Marc

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