On Tue, 17 Nov 2009 07:04:57 -0800 (PST), 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.

You can buy a personal EPIRB for that money.

Then again, a new SOLAS EPIRB is going to cost you close to $800 so it
might be worth it.

I'm surprised they have to send it back to England for repair.

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.

I don't believe they are automatcally deployed as a normal EPIRB
would.

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?

Wayne does - he's used it on his cruises often. It's very cool and
you can link it up with Google Maps.

I'm sure Wayne will be along to describe it.

On Tue, 17 Nov 2009 10:42:13 -0500, Tom Francis - SWSports
wrote:

I'm sure Wayne will be along to describe it.

On r.b.c