EPIRBs

[ozscott]

Thanks Shakey

Wise choice.

The flow chart is for Domestic Commercial Vessels (DCVs) but useful for recreational vessel info (especially the options for vessels <7m + positive/level flotation vessels).

What they don't tell you is why the flowchart goes in certain directions. Obviously, they acknowledge that the existence of level/positive flotation on a vessel affects the requirements.

But they don't tell you why. The actual reason is what we discussed. (Compromised performance)

What they're acknowledging is that the EPIRB release MAY NOT WORK under certain conditions so the requirement is dropped for those conditions.

Mind you, after giving the story of how simple the process apparently is, dropping into the spiel a qualification that the bloody thing may not actually work under some circumstances, would do wonders for the confidence of vessel operators being told that they must fit one.

A recreational guy comes along and believes that the float-free is the greatest thing since sliced bread and fits one to a level/positive flotation recreation vessels and heads off confident that eveything is ok.

Its not but the rec guy doesn't know that.

Because his vessel has positive buoyancy, the float-free epirb probably won't float free at all. It'll remain attached to the bracket but transmitting from underwater thus reducing its effective satellite range with the rec guy scratching his head wondering why helicopters and rescue vessels aren't appearing over the horizon.

We all just need to remember that an epirb, elt or plb is NOT a rescue device. It doesn't guarantee rescue.

It's simply an alerting device designed to activate a response.

All this sounds simple on paper but actually locating a distressed vessel is never as easy as it seems (beacon or not). Easier in daylight but throw in darkness and things change dramatically.

Like you, I won't be fitting a float-free one.

Float free is no good if the boat gets flipped and it's trapped inside either. I use a water activated GPS model in a grab bag left at my feet. Cheers

Sent from my SM-N960F using Tapatalk

[stevej]

I can’t swim to save myself so all my offshore jackets have marine plbs as well

would hate to think I survived a incident and a mate didn’t so 4 of them was less then I spend on a rod and reel

[Ronje1]

I can’t swim to save myself so all my offshore jackets have marine plbs as well

would hate to think I survived a incident and a mate didn’t so 4 of them was less then I spend on a rod and reel

Do you have a plan for their use when things go wrong?

[stevej]

Do you have a plan for their use when things go wrong?

no idea what you mean by that question

when i had the big boat i educated people on their use and where the safety gear is situated on the boat
the plbs were just another available source of help in a unplanned emergency

[CT]

no idea what you mean by that question

when i had the big boat i educated people on their use and where the safety gear is situated on the boat
the plbs were just another available source of help in a unplanned emergency

One of my interpretations of the question is do you wear them?

I've got inflatables that I wear at all times when travelling at night, and in winter when fishing in multiple jackets and shoes. I have long thought that your idea of having a PLB or EPIRB on each jacket, along with a set of pencil flares, would be pretty close to as prepared as you can get.

[stevej]

Fair enough

I had proper pfds for bar crossings and self inflaters for anyone who didn’t want to wear one of them all day
the plb and strobe light were kept in the glove box on the boat and attached to what ever life jacket was being used


solo or not everyone including me wore a jacket off shore

all the other safety gear was pretty standard and the epirb was mounted on the dash in easy reach of everyone at the helm

considering what the boat cost the extra cost was minimal in the scene of things

[Ronje1]

Is it your plan that ALL the beacons are activated at the same time? (I was hoping that it wasn't.)

Here's how an incident involving 4 epirbs evolves.

They're all on the same frequency. 406 mhz.

If that was the plan, how do you think a satellite would react to being hit with 4 signals on the same frequency simultaneously from 4 different beacons?

Maybe these 406 meg digital satellites can identify each beacon individually (if the individual transmit duty cycles don't interact) but I'll bet the location source of each beacon is a different kettle of fish for the satellite to decode even if GPS equipped.

If the beacons are NOT GPS equipped, then the satellite processor has to use some electronic "smoke and mirrors" calculations as a location best guess. AND it has to do that under influence of interfering signals. Best of luck.



If you recall the tragic Sydney to Hobart race, THAT'S exactly what happened as boats started to get into trouble and why so many died. Satellites overloaded by multiple epirb signals on 121.5 megs (4 and 5 at a time).

The alerting part worked OK. The satellites heard the distress beacons OK.

But the rescuers couldn't individually find them with so many "jamming" the frequency. Weather wasn't the best either.

Rescuers never had to deal with anything on that scale under those conditions before.


In you case, Steve, may be more value in having a plan to trigger them 1 by one each 24 hours (or so). Then the battery life of your emergency "beacon" (4 of them) is quadrupled.

Once a rescue vessel/aircraft gets within the location ballpark that its been directed to, it'll swing over to track the "homing" signal ( a continuous swept 1 kz audio signal superimposed on a continuous radio signal of 121.5 megs) coming from the beacon only

to find that there are 4 of them "on the air" at the same time. 4 different frequencies of 121.5mhz "beating" against each other along with 4 tones of 1 khz swept through the audio range. More tones, whistles and chirps than a symphony orchestra warming up.

Shades of the Sydney to Hobart tragedy. I'll defy any rescue aircraft/vessel to successfully find the actual source/s of 4 simultaneously and continuously radiating epirbs in the same area.

What Joe Public HASN'T been told is that EPIRBS/PLBs also operate on 243megs (the military distress freq) for homing purposes so the only way to find the 4 individual locations by "homing" is to for the rescuer to find each one of them one at a time by

switching to 243 megs to avoid the congestion 121.5 megs and I'll bet that the rescuer won't have the necessary 243 meg capability (unless its military).

Notice anything about 121.5 megahertz and 243 megahertz?
Most of the rescuing assets won't know much about actually tracing an activated epirb anyway.

243 megs has always been the tracking frequency used by the guys who were actually primarily responsible for finding them (and It wasn't AMSA, police, rescue authorities, military or aircraft who had to find them).

THEY can't hear a 406mhz beacon signal because they're digital bursts of signal with low duty cycle (to pulse/burst transmit higher power (5 watts) and to conserve battery life at the same time).

Nor can anybody else (except the satellites). The rescuing vessels are simply given coordinates and then have to rely on the use of "homing" devices or eyesight once in the area. Good luck at night and also day in lousy weather with whitecaps. Even more so

with 4 X 121.5 homing transmitters on the air.

A real clusterf... to contend with and all brought about by well meaning but ill-informed intentions.

1 epirb is much easier and quicker to find than 4 operating simultaneously.

So here's a much better plan if u have already bought 4 epribs.

Just use the 4 different 406 meg beacons one at a time sequentially to effectively have 1 epirb with a battery life 4 times any individual one.

I guess that's the beauty of having a plan. Failure comes as a complete surprise (or even worse at times).

Its the simple things that can kill 'ya. Don't assume anything. Check things out.

I reckon that I found over 500 activated epirbs in the southern half of Qld coastline in my working life. 95% were false or deliberate alarms (a couple booby trapped). I found survivors in water and also in boats (gratifying outcomes) . On

fewer occasions I found EPIRBS but no survivors (epirb drifting around or tied to debris. Non-gratifying moments).

[stevej]

8E9E5A25-84C6-4888-A9F6-711EAD58B9EF.jpgSorry I’m not reading all that and if I had of noticed it was your post I wouldnt have replied in the first place

water police local rescue division have no issues with my gear and set up when asked them about it or when pulled over to be checked as I always seem to have happen to me

off course I wouldn’t set them all off in a group but people get separated people fall overboard without others knowing anything can happen
some stay with the boat while someone floats off kms away
I know you can’t help but overthink things and ignore any positive opinion someone has and will always come up with a negative

life fact you can’t plan for everything and anything can happen no matter how glorious you think your shit smells

[Ronje1]

Sorry, I'm not reading all that.

Please yourself but you should 'cos it tells you why your idea isn't a good one.

Being from NSW, you must surely be aware that the Water Police Local Rescue Division in which you seem to have a lot of faith, is the same group involved in the Sydney - Hobart tragedy.

They STILL can't respond to multiple homing signals to find multiple activated EPIRB sources. Nothing has changed much in that regard.

When the US SARSAT system on 121.5/243 was abandoned in favour of the Russian COAPAS system on 406, the emergency ALERTING system improved dramatically. The Russian system ALWAYS outperformed the US system.

But once ALERTED to a problem, the beacon still has to be found. If the beacon was GPS equipped, then that transmitted GPS information was a starting point. If it was night time or bad weather, then things were much more difficult to find.

So rescue authorities are still faced with the same problem of homing-in onto a beacon.

Most can do that with only 1 beacon "on-air" at a time.

But 2, 3 or 4 simultaneous homing signals on 121.5 in the same area puts things back to the Sydney-Hobart scenario again.

Steve, if you want to go and get yourself into bother and then make it hard for rescue authorities to do their job, then go for your life but don't put others at risk in doing so.

I've now told you why I believe its a bad idea.

Despite being aware of the pitfalls when you first suggested the idea, I didn't simply come straight out with why I believed that it could be a bad idea.

Instead, I asked you if you had a plan and then left you to think about it for a week.

You may have been aware of the problems or investigated it yourself in the week that you had to think about it.

You obviously hadn't, so I told you.

I don't believe that safety of life matters can be over-thought.

Don't let personal likes or dislikes cloud your judgement.

[stevej]

What to do in a group

If you are in a group, do not activate more than two beacons. If the group separates, activate a beacon in each group. If individuals drift apart, activate beacons fitted to each person.

https://beacons.amsa.gov.au/activation/

Instead of listening to some random on the Internet I actually rang the government agency responsible for managing the point being discussed.

and they had no issue with what I was doing.

I suggest you take your own advice don’t offer advice that puts others at risk.

[stevej]

seeing as Ronje1 hasnt returned

https://youtu.be/GFtOPJ30g8k

noticed the boys on big angry fish also use plbs
awesome kiwi fishing channel if people havnt seen it