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I wonder how that kind of event is detected by the beacon, and if I could buy one for a person I know flies with visual flight rules (this means no recurrent fee, at least for 10 years).
https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/?pageName=mtEpirb
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_position-indicatin...
I bought one of these PLBs after spending 12h down a canyon with a broken ankle and no cell reception. Friends had to hike back out of the canyon and hike then drive for hours to get help. Never again. Since then I got a sailboat and it's pretty standard in that field to have EPIRB, PLBs and the likes. There's life-vests that come with mini-PLBs in them. It's a bit pricey but it's essential in my opinion. I was lucky…
Depending on where and with whom you sail, getting a DSC/AIS-based beacon may make sense:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIS-SART
If you're mostly in coastal waters, and not short-handed, then help is probably not far away, and being able to see where a person is floating on a chart plotter display makes for easier retrieval.
* http://oceansignal.com/products/mob1/
Of course if you're doing oceanic stuff, and/or short-handed with overnight watches, then an EPIRB/PLB may make more sense.
Incredible service. Is there a payment required for rescue services? For instance, does the Coast Guard charge the six people rescued when the boat sank?
And that's fair - my point is only that it may be free, but they're not just handing it out either.
Posting this because it isnt mentioned in the article, but among mariners these beacons are known as EPIRBs. The system has evolved significantly to support individual beacons now. So search for EPIRB if you want one or want to learn more. https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/?pageName=mtEpirb https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_position-indicatin...
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIS-SART
Useful in coastal waters where rescue may not be fair away.
I have one of these beacons and take it with me most times I'm going out alone into the wilderness. I don't want to be the guy who had to cut his own arm off after it got trapped by a falling boulder. That being said, this is an interesting spin on the number. I've been hearing from friends on Search and Rescue crews that an increasing number of people are going out hiking being completely unprepared for any possible…
I've been an active member of a search and rescue team in southeast Alaska since 2002. This has been a really interesting period to be involved in SAR. When I started, very few people had cell phones or GPS devices. Then came a period where almost everyone had a cell phone. Then people had cell phones with embedded GPS. Now we're seeing many people with GPS-enabled mapping software such as Gaia on their devices. I ha…
I have one of these beacons and take it with me most times I'm going out alone into the wilderness. I don't want to be the guy who had to cut his own arm off after it got trapped by a falling boulder. That being said, this is an interesting spin on the number. I've been hearing from friends on Search and Rescue crews that an increasing number of people are going out hiking being completely unprepared for any possible…
This is so true.
I live in the desert, and it's amazing the number of people who simply don't take the natural world seriously.
The dead and rescued are almost always tourists. And for some reason, almost always from Europe (I suspect because my observation has been that Asians tend to travel in large groups on air conditioned buses). They drive rental cars into deep sand and get stuck and die. They run out of gas and get stuck and die. They never bring enough food or water and don't know what to do in an emergency.
I was at a hotel on the Navajo Reservation (Arizona/New Mexico/Utah) about a year ago and there was a British couple arguing with the manager that of course their cell phone should work, they bought it in San Francisco. I tired to explain to them that the whole reason people visit places like this is to get away from technology. Even though I'm sure there are remote places in Europe, they had no concept that there are places in the world where there's no cell service.
A couple of years ago there was an article in the newspaper about a German guy who decided to rent a Harley Davidson and drive through the desert like some kind of David Hasselhof fantasy. It was 115° and he was in full-on black leather gear. They found him dead on the side of the road, still sitting on his motorcycle with his helmet on.
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Editing to add the results from a four-second Google News search:
authorities in California launched a search for Pi-Wei Hung, 40, early Sunday afternoon... the woman’s vehicle was discovered stuck in the sand on the shoulder... and then died in the heat as she tried to walk out of the area. The high temperature that day was 113 degrees.
a 60-year-old tourist from Germany died from heat exposure... not far from his where his motorcycle was parked, upright and in working order, in the 118-degree heat.
...two French tourists got their car stuck in loose sand... no one knew their specific travel route, and they were out of cellphone range in temperatures above 110 degrees.
My FastFind PLB doesn't seem to have replaceable batteries so I just left it in storage and haven't used it. Has anyone managed to replace their batteries?
> the impact of the crash of a small aircraft near Skwentna, Alaska, activated the emergency beacon onboard. I wonder how that kind of event is detected by the beacon, and if I could buy one for a person I know flies with visual flight rules (this means no recurrent fee, at least for 10 years).
Almost all aircraft in the US are required to have an ELT beacon installed on-board, though many are still equipped with the old analog (121.5 MHz) technology which isn't monitored by satellite anymore.
If you want to carry a backup or want to have a modern digital beacon (406 MHz), you can certainly carry a PLB. Many pilots do, myself included. Note that these are manually activated only, no g-force sensor.
For a PLB, I recommend picking up an ACR ResQLink. They retail for about $300.