Zenith Aircraft Builders and Flyers
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Spot versus PLB
There are a number of significant differences. Spot isn't a PLB.
"A 406 MHz signal coming from an EPIRB/PLB is recognized by SAR as a true emergency, and they act immediately. By law, search and rescue is
required to find and turn off any 406 MHz beacon once activated. Search
and Rescue has made it very clear that SPOT and other tracking gadgets
are to be treated as a missing persons report: until they get more
information regarding the distress message, they are going to wait and
see, and not deploy their forces for the possibility that someone simply
has a flat tire on the side of the road and needs help. Additionally,
if the SPOT unit is unable to download and retransmit a GPS position
(see frequency and power issues above), SAR has no idea where the
transmission has come from and will not put their forces in danger
looking for a needle in a hay stack."
http://desertexplorer.wordpress.com/2010/02/05/revisiting-the-spot-...
http://www.acrelectronics.com/faqs/spotvs.aspx
http://www.406link.com/
If I had known all of this, I would have ordered a PLB ;-) but I already did and it arrived today.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Bob McDonald on
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The SPOT transmits to an external (private) monitored point of contact with the GPS position and a choice of 3 levels of assistance required. In a "911" transmission from my SPOT the external monitoring agency is instructed to contact Trenton Search & Rescue (Canadian Military responsible for my part of Canada) with the message "This SPOT is used in an aircraft. This is a life & death emergency request for assistance and and the GPS postion information". By this time I have hopefully also activated the 121.5 ELT with the remote panel mount switch (why wait for impact forces). My wife & friends can log onto my SPOT account and see both my track every 10 minutes and my present position on google earth maps. They can also contact Search & Rescue with this position information, at the very least hundreds of miles of northern Ontario wilderness can be bypassed on the way to my last "known" position. The SPOT is so accurate my wife knows I diverted to an alternate airport by the time I phone her to tell of the delay or change in flight plan. Perhaps too accurate as she now knows the exact time I landed so I can't hang around "hangar flying at the airport" with my buddys.
It is a tool used to enhance your survivial and to date it has worked fine in my application. Just my 2 cents.
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