My recollection from the last time I updated my ResQLink was that the NOAA registration form doesn't have a huge amount of space for trip details. Also, for those of us who get out frequently, often for short trips, going through the update procedure before every trip would get somewhat cumbersome. Better, I think, is to keep the registration up to date with general info (boat/kayak/vehicle description, etc) and leave the trip plan with the contact person. Of course, this doesn't help in Tjin's case.

Sometime back I had a conversation with someone who works in the Rescue Coordination Center. My understanding was that while they will always call the contact person, not reaching that contact doesn't mean they won't launch a rescue. However, in obviously questionable cases they might first do some investigation, such a GPS location that shows up at your house, or from a boat parked at a marina. He also said there is a lower rate of false alarms from PLBs than from EPIRBs and ELTs. The reason being that PLBs require several deliberate conscious steps to activate. Whereas many ELT/EPIRB are designed to activate automatically in some cases (when a plane crashes or a boat sinks). For example, a hard landing might trigger an automatic aircraft ELT, or a big wave over the deck might trigger an EPIRB.

One good story I heard from SE Alaska was that they spent some time trying to resolve an EPIRB signal that seemed to be cruising down the coast, right behind a tugboat. It turned out it was in a pile of garbage on a barge. Someone was dismantling an old vessel, and inadvertently tossed the EPIRB into the trash. It somehow became activated and was merrily pinging away as it was hauled to the dump!