need an EPIRB to carry in plane

[lyle janke]

hi all 

what are your recomendations for an epirb that is at the cheaper ind of market that does the job 

thanks 

 

[Old Koreelah]

The Australian GME Accusat ticks all the boxes for me. Worn in a pouch on the belt, it’s easy to open and activate after you’ve scrambled out of a wreck, or while still sitting inside. GPS tells Canberra exactly where you are within a few minutes.

Cost about $400, but you might do better.

[Blueadventures]

I have a kti brand and its small, havn't had to use it yet.  AMSA Beacons lists all the approved brands and models.  Cheers.

[rgmwa]

I have an ACR ResQlink, available from BCF for about $350. Similar to the GME.

[Yenn]

I use KTI and have had GME in the past. This is not an Epirb, it is a PLB. PLBs are legal for recreational flying and also GA. It used to be that the plane had to have an EPIRB, which is an automatic beacon mounted in the plane. A PLB can be carried anywhere, for sailing or bushwalking or even use for a road accident in one of those many place where phone is not available.

[Blueadventures]

4 minutes ago, Yenn said:

I use KTI and have had GME in the past. This is not an Epirb, it is a PLB. PLBs are legal for recreational flying and also GA. It used to be that the plane had to have an EPIRB, which is an automatic beacon mounted in the plane. A PLB can be carried anywhere, for sailing or bushwalking or even use for a road accident in one of those many place where phone is not available.

To add to Yenns comment in short a PLB is samde alert function as an EPIRB; however the battery transmit period is about half that of an EPIRB,  the EPIRB is designed to float upright when deployed / floating in the water,  the PLB is a little dear to purchase and the PLB is smaller more compact.  I personally have the 'kti' brand in my Nynja.  Hope this helps.

[Old Koreelah]

3 hours ago, Yenn said:

I use KTI and have had GME in the past. This is not an Epirb, it is a PLB. PLBs are legal for recreational flying and also GA. It used to be that the plane had to have an EPIRB, which is an automatic beacon mounted in the plane. A PLB can be carried anywhere, for sailing or bushwalking or even use for a road accident in one of those many place where phone is not available.

I used to wear my PLB on solo bike trips and still wear it on long trips away from phone range.

[Kieran17]

My previous beacon from a number of years ago was an ACR ResQLink which was used at an incident in regional Victoria a decade or so ago. Worked as advertised. I was in mobile phone coverage at the time, standing next to an emergency marker, however the site involved was about 1.5km away at the bottom of the hill.

I activated the beacon and called 000 at the same time, dealing with 000 for an accident location that did not have an address was difficult. When they were told that the accident site was 1.5km west of the emergency marker, they were not able to put it onto their system, instead asking for a nearby road intersection or other address. I was on the phone to 000 for about 6 minutes to get the message through to them.

By the time I was done with 000, I had two missed calls on my phone and answered on the third call that came shortly afterward from AMSA. They advised me that my beacon activation was detected and I confirmed intentional and gave them the details, they said they could see the location of the beacon, to which I advised that the accident site was 1.5km west, "no problem, keep your phone on and we'll call back shortly" they said.

Seven minutes later they called back and said the helicopter is airborne at Warrnambool and on its way. HEMS4 arrived 30 minutes later.

 

Following that I ended up doing a deal with the importer of the Ocean Signal rescueME PLB and bought 40 of them, and passed them on at cost price just to get more of them out there.

 

Battery life in the beacons is finite, my first one was rated for 10 years, the second for 7 years. Within the rated life, the PLB will broadcast for a minimum of 24 hours (EPIRBs are 48 hours). They will broadcast on 406MHz which will include the encoded GPS data (get a GPS equipped version) which is detected by several satellites and downlinked to the JRCC as well as a low power 121.5MHz signal which can be used for aerial homing. When you get one, make sure you register it with AMSA.

 

If you have a chance to look and feel before you buy, see how it goes getting the antenna up and turning it on one handed. If you fall while hiking and break your arm, will you still be able to activate it?

 

When you buy one, keep it accessible. There'll be no point having a beacon in a bag in the back of the plane that you can't access (altitude above you, runway behind you etc). 

 

When ever I'm travelling away from town, I'll carry the PLB in the car/plane/kayak/backpack, including when I'm overseas (it'll work anywhere globally). You never know when you'll be driving down a county road away from mobile reception and come across a car crash, or worse, be involved on one. The life that your beacon saves may not be your own.

 

 

Buy one (anywhere around $350 seems to be the mark), keep it accessible, save a life.

 

 

 

Kieran

 

[phlegm]

Great post. Just regarding 000 (I used to work there), they always have to start by asking for an address. Second best is an intersection, and a distant third is an entire suburb/town. Their scripts are very inflexible and the call takers can't send the job to the dispatchers until they have a verified location and have assigned a job code (a triage sort of thing). They CAN get a lat/long from your phone but only later in the call, and it's not an automatic process. 

 

So if this ever happens again, the fastest thing would be to say "I'm in the town of [wherever], I don't have any other location details but I do have an epirb activated", that way they can send the job (ie get help coming) with partial location details then figure out the exact location later. They'll never see your epirb but they can send a link to your phone that enables location tracking when pressed. 

[Old Koreelah]

Location of the accident is always the issue. The traveller calling it in may not have noticed the name of the last village they passed thru. Our VRA rescue squad often gets activated for a job on the highway, X km north of Y. After we’re on the road, we call in for more recent info and often get a very different location. A few times we’ve driven miles and not found the incident because the caller has no local knowledge.

 

The worst is new residents who re-name a property (and it’s access road) and expect us to find it.

 

Rural Addressing has saved lots of lives. Every block and gateway is allocated an address; 3204 means it’s 32.04 km north or west of the start of that road.

This makes it easier for emergency services, who may have been rostered into that district for the first time that week..

[tillmanr]

The rural numbering addresses I travel to in Victoria are distance East of intersections.

[Old Koreelah]

21 minutes ago, tillmanr said:

The rural numbering addresses I travel to in Victoria are distance East of intersections.

The plurry Mexicans would have to be different!

[tillmanr]

"Property numbers are worked out based on the distance from the start of the road to the entrance of the property. That distance (in metres) is divided by ten.

Even numbers are on the right and odd numbers are on the left. For example, the entrance to a property 5,080 metres from the start of the road on the right hand side becomes number 508."

The start of the road is determined as the fastest and safest road accessed from the nearest major road or town.

These rules are not confined to Victoria. This quote is from South Aus.

The road which passes YKTN, ( a couple of Ks from town), is measured from Metcalf, (15 ks away), and a much smaller town than Kyneton.

[Old Koreelah]

Just got back from cutting a person out of a crashed vehicle. Excellent directions this time, because we were given a precise rural address. The trapped person deserves a medal for patience and good humour: a motorist stopped when he saw the Ambulance attending the overturned wreck in the table drain. He was shocked that someone was inside. 

He, like lots of others, had driven past it this mornng without a thought.