Again, I understand your concern about only getting postion updates every 20 minutes, but the way I look at it is this:

On land, once you've activated a PLB you shouldn't be moving anyway. If for some reason you HAVE to move, then after 21-30 minutes searchers will have two locations on record and will have an indication of your direction of travel. I'm not sure if the locations have a time-stamp on them. If so, they'll have a sense of speed too.

If in big water, you will almost certainly be moving due to wind and currents. Even then the same thing holds. In 30 minutes they'll know the direction of travel and may have an approximate speed.

It seems that SAR crews will take some time be put into action and to get to your location, and getting a fresh location 20 minutes after the initial location seems about right. They should be able to get regular updates on location changes via radio - I would guess. Plus if so equipped and trained they can also use the 121.5 MHz homing beacon from the PLB to find my exact positon.

I don't expect my PLB to get me rescued in 10 minutes. I figure an hour or more is highly likely, which is why I still need to be "equipped".

Ken

Is anyone else wondering how having the PLB might have contributed to him getting stuck in the first place? Just to play devil's advocate, it seems like we have a guy that went out alone, might not have left a plan with anyone else (other than getting a permit), attempted something beyond his ability, left a majority of his equipment behind, and relied on his PLB as a lifeline to get him out of trouble. To put it another way, does having a PLB make him prepared, or just more likely to make risky decisions? Because if he didn't have one, I would think we'd have a very different opinion about him right now

Without the PLB he'd likely have been dead.

Since I don't climb or know all the inputs to his decision-making process, I can't judge him on decisions made.

I know in my life I've made some real foolish decisions and luckily had the skills or equipment along to bale me out - for the most part. I've fallen through thin ice and had people and gear to help get me warm again. I've driven into bad winter storms thinking my 4WD truck would take care of me - and it did. I've gone camping in nasty weather with forcasted high winds and thunderstorms thinking my gear would take care of me - and it did. I can think of one time as a kid where I thought my car could handle the road, but it didn't and I ended getting pretty messed up (broken back - ripped up face). We all make decisions and some of them don't work out for the best, that is where good plans, good friends, good gear, first aid kits, survival kits, cell phones, and PLB's come into play.

The point is to be equipped to survive those bad decisions.

I thought lost soloists just chew their arm off?



I think it will be a sad day when someone that goes out alone in the woods is condemned. Some of my best days in the field were solo.

This guy went prepared and his preps paid off.

He's been found by the Chile navy...

I get the impression that some people think that the PLB is the magic survival talisman. If you have a PLB, you don't need matches, a compass, map, sleeping bag, signal mirror, water, etc. Just stash your stuff & climb. The PLB will save your life, but only if you don't freeze to death or die of dehydration first. Rescues have been delayed by bad weather, exactly the situation when you will need the usual survival stuff the most.

Good thing he got found. I guess he called his sister in the U.S. on a satellite phone and told her he was in trouble and to get him help. They knew roughly where he was, but a beacon would have done much better - at least it would seem.

It sounds like he is really one tough dude, but that he was really scared for his life for a time.

I agree. I'm not condeming him for going solo, in fact I think sometimes going solo is the best way to go. What I was saying is that he took unecessary risk while alone, which I suspect were because he was relying on a single electronic device to get him out of trouble.

The problem I see here was this was no accident. Unlike the Kims, who took a wrong turn or got lost, or the Mt Hood climbers who got caught in a snowstorm, or even the runner who fell and hurt herself, there doesn't seem to be any extenuating circumtances to have caused his problem. From what I read in this case, he didnt' fall and get injured, no sudden unexpected weather change, no falling rocks to prevent his going back the way he came. Nothing at all that was unforseen. He basically just kept going forward until he wasn't able to return. Where was his climbing gear? Why would he leave almost everything behind in an area where it gets below freezing? If this was like the Aaron Ralston case and he had injured himself because of a falling rock, then used the PLB to call for rescue, that's great, it's what they were designed for. But I don't think they were meant for people to take them along just so they can go as far as they want to and have someone else pick them up when they can't make it back.

I think one of the first things people learn when traveling outdoors, especially when traveling solo, is that you don't go headfirst into the unknown without knowing how to return. Just like in hiking, if you dont' know what's ahead, dont' keep going until your water runs out, turn around when you still have enough water to make it back. Or in canyoneering, don't pull the ropes down unless you know for sure there's another exit out of the canyon. I would think climbing would be the same way, don't climb up what you can't climb down, unless you know there's another way down.

My thoughts exactly. ChaChing

It's both location and time-since-last-use. They download the parameters for a mathematical model called an almanac which they use for a first-guess location of the satellites. The satellites drift away from where the almanac says they are, so it becomes less useful over time and effectively expires after about 3 months. Downloading a new one can take half an hour or so; it's transmitted by all the GPS satellites, but slowly. So if a GPS unit hasn't been used for over 3 months, it can take a while to get fixes until it's held a fix for half an hour or so.

There is also another model called the ephemeris, which is much more precise and expires after a few hours. That's the one it actually uses to fix your location. It expires after a few hours, which is why a "warm boot" is faster than a cold one.