Personal Locator Beacons

[adventureduo]

I've been seeing more and more these small locator beacons in various magazines that you can travel with in case of emergency.

ACR Electronics Terrafix 406 GPS I Personal Locator Beacon $450
http://www.rei.com/product/47799529.htm

Anyone have any experience with them? Is there a affordable brand? Is there any type of monthly service plan to keep them activated?

Lastly, is there anyway to make a locator out of your GPS?

I'd like to learn more about them. Anyone have any insight?

 

[Robthebrit]

I have a beacon, there is no subscription to keep them activated. When you get it you have to register it with the goverment, so they know the ID and who owns it. Once done you are good to go. There are fairly strict rules for testing these units and not causing a rescue to be initiated. All the info you need comes with the unit. There is a web site you can use to maintain your info which is nice if you rent a sat phone, you can use the web to put the rental sat phone as the contact number. Like a sat phone these becons can be rented, if you are interested in buying then rent before you buy.

They were originally intended for marine use, not all countries will resuce you if you fire one off on land. Fortunately the US wand Austrialia are two countries that do help for land based emergencies, not sure about canada. The US wants all aircaft ELTs to use this same system instead of the existing 121.5mhz system.

The one you found is a pretty cheap one, you are probably not going to find one much cheaper.

A few others on the list have them too.

Rob

 

[BogusBlake]

I was talking with a coworker about these things yesterday. He looked into buying one just to leave in his Jeep, you know, just in case...

He said the cheapest one he found was $800. That one looks like a deal.

 

[FJ-Ollie]

Check out this link at West Marine:
EPIRB

There are several options for you. The one you have shown appears to be pretty popular.

There are ways to interface GPS units with Ham Radios to emmit location signals. Talk to your local Ham Radio equipment source and they should be able to set you up. I had the same question and my contact at HRO (Ham Radio Outlet) said that it was very doable. Evidently you just need to buy a little box that goes between your radio and GPS that changes the signal from one format to the other depending on your GPS device.

 

[kellymoe]

Check this out. Interesting.
www.findmespot.com