beacons?

As I understand, signal of modern beacons can be received by satellites. But will it not be ignored? Emergency beacon looks much smaller than satellite phone and GPS, so better for PSK, but telephone call to a few relatives will not be ignored 100%.
Thanks,

Head over to the excellent PLB "FAQ":

http://www.equipped.org/faq_plb/default.asp

Also check out the COSPAS-SARSAT overview:

http://www.equipped.org/cospas-sarsat_overview.htm

Thank,
Does anybody know what is the chance rescue mission will start once beacon is activated, what is the chance someone will respond on it, especially if you are not in the USA, but in some other part of the world, like South America, Central Africa of somewhere in Asia? I read books when military or civilians activated their beacons, but no rescue came (but these stories are more than 10 years old, I guess then beacons could not be located by satellite)...

406 MHz beacons are not ignored. How quick rescue arrives depends upon where you are. If you are in an area with minimal SAR resources, it doesn't matter how you contact them, rescue will take longer. If it is a U.S. registered beacon, U.S. SAR resources may be dispatched if available in the area with minimal or no SAR resources of their own. Just depends. A 406 beacon is the most reliable means of alerting, regardless of where you are.

Yes there has been instances where the beacons signals didnt get received and no one was dispatched. These are radio transmitters, not mirracle devices as some people think they are. A fisherman down here a few years back set one going at the base of a cliff and bagged the rescue services for not comming all over the media. He should have learned to use the device first before putting all his trust in it.
The older analogue type can also fail if multiple transmitters are going at the same time. The newer 406Mhz digital beacons have solved this problem.

In the US for ELT's my understanding is that the AFRCC will wait for at least three sat passes to enable them to get a decent fix on the location. That means about 3 to 4 hours, the notice will then go to the designated SAR group for that area. In Pennsylvania it is usally about 5 hours after first signal is recieved before the notice goes to the local SAR personal figure about 30 to 60 minutes for an aircraft to be lanched and a UDF team to get into the search area then the real work starts assuming that the signal is accuired by the aircraft and it guides the UDF team to the location best case it would be about 6 to 8 hours before the team would arrive at the beacon's location. It's the last half mile that's the hardest. Please note that most becons do not work well in heavy woodland, I have seen beacons that we could not recieve on the ground from more than 100 Yards but the aircraft could here it from several miles away. Rember the more sky you can see the better chance the you will be heard.

The question was regards "modern" beacons. Your answer regarding timing and beacon performance information relates to older and outdated 121.5 MHz beacons, not 406 MHz. The performance of the two are entirely different and 406 is worlds better in performance and response time. In some cases (with GPS enabled beacons), 406 response time is less than 5 minutes from beacon activation and almost always within 45 minutes in the U.S. the mission is tasked. Coast Guard missions launch within minutes of tasking; CAP and others may take longer, sometime quite a bit longer, but rescues have occurred within an hour for many USCG responses. Because of the accuracy of the 406 beacons, search time is virtually nil in most cases. Generally, proceed to the coordinates and find the victims within visual range. As NOAA likes to say, 406 takes the "search" out of Search and Rescue.

Please don't confuse the two types of bacons. You need to be very clear when you provide such information that this relates only to the older 121.5 MHz beacons so as to not mislead folks as to what they can expect from the newer 406 beacons. There is just no comparison.

Adding to what Doug said, the 406Mhz beacons have to be registered to the end user.
Here in Australia, when a 406Mhz signal is recieved the first response is to try and contact the registered contact person for that beacon. This has eliminated a coulple of false alarms so far where kids have been playing with the beacons and the parents didnt know.
No action is initiated until contact is attempted first, this is why it is important to register the beacon, and also to register it in other countries when traveling.

Just to make this clear, while the contact is attempted immediately, failure to make contact does not delay response, though success can hurry response. For example, if an unlocated alert is received via GEO satellites and they call your emergency contact number and they say, yes, you're of climbing so and so mountain, they may launch on that, so as to be in the area when the Doppler derived location is received a little later and thereby shortening response time.



I am not sure what you mean by this. You only register the beacon once, normally in your country of origin. Beacons are country coded and with few exceptions cannot be registered in countries other than for which they are coded. The registration location should have no impact on the initial SAR response which is alert location dependent.

Yes, I was talking about the 121.5 ELT. As far as taking the search out of SAR that is what they said when SARSAT was introduced. The new 406 system is a huge step above the older system if for no other reason than the information that will be provided to the searchers and the reduction in the number of false alarms.
As a side note I would be willing to bet most ELT's that go into private aircraft will not have the GPS with them. When the ELT's where introduced most aircraft owners bought the least costly unit they could because they "knew" that they would never crash so why spend money on something that won't get used. I will not even talk about some of the instulations useing Velcro straps.

However we are talking about EPLB's that are being bought by people who know that even with the best planning things can and will go wrong and that becon may be the only way to get help. I also think a lot of criet goes to the testing that ETS has done to keep the makers of the equipment honest.

As far as I understand it, and I admit I could be off track, but if you bring your beacon to Australia while traveling, you should contact the local beacon registration and let them know you are in the area they cover. Registration may not have been the right word to use.

Edit : Ive been searching through the AMSA Government Website and I cant find the reference about my comment above. I thought that I read this info there, but I cant remember where I read it. I may have given misleading info about travelling.

In the U.S., there is a comment section on the registration which can be updated whenever necessary to list current trip itineraries, etc.

I think, as you have discovered, that you may have been mistaken. I cannot even think of a mechanism within the COSPAS-SARSAT system by which this could be accomplished.

Now, having said all that, The U.S. online beacon registration system does allow you to easily insert useful information in the "Additional Information" field and I encourage users to put their itinerary in this field, or a link to it elsewhere online. This is an excellent way to assist SAR.

Thanks for the compliment.