$50 emergency locator beacon?

[LittleJohn]

I work in the marine industry, travelling far and on rough seas. Every ship in our fleet as several EPIRB's on them as well as some SART's. The old 121.5 mhz EPIRB's are no longer so make sure you don't get a second hand one of these. They are going to stop the constant checking on this frequency soon (so I've been told). Also the new EPIRB's can pin-point your position down to a few km's or less.

Not sure about the EPIRB's you are talking about in question but the marine ones have to be registered with your details and boat name, call sign etc... This is a free service, just means that if your EPIRB is activated the first thing they do is try and contact you to discover if it was set off by accident. If no response then they start the SAR mission.

Marine VHF is a good idea as it is land based as well to pick-up on a lot of the lakes used around NZ. If you contacted Maritime NZ they can supply you with a list of all the different frequencies around NZ and there coverage. As some have mentioned there is CH16 for emergency (life threatening) but there are other channels, some local, to provide help and assistance. You can also let them know your route and timeframe. Also don't forget that there are certain protocols for use with radios. To obtain a VHF licence (marine anyway) is relatively simple. They give you a book, you study it and then go and sit a simple test.... easy as that.

Both EPIRB's and VHF radios have there uses and good/bad points. The safest thing to do is ride with others and let people know your route and timeframe.

As for the question, if I was adventure riding or riding solo a bit then yes I would get one at what-ever cost, as for a $50 option, would probably get one just to be on the safe side.

[Radar]

See here: Australian Maritime Safety Authority

I've also found this in the news: Woman rescued in 4,500-mile alert

Your $525 is with or without a GPS? The cheaper I could find over here was $1016 (415€) w/o a GPS and $1640 (655€) with GPS included.


Anyhow, all that is being discussed here (beacons, radio,...) needs your intervention. What if you have gone down and lay inconscious just behind those bushes so no one will see you from the road?

The $525 beacon does have GPS - it would have to give a location otherwise the beacon would only emit a signal that an aircraft could home in on. The more expensive Trig Instruments beacon has a better GPS and is used at sea. The tech I spoke with said the $525 beacon would be OK for land use - the more expensive unit would not have an advantage (something to do with finding the beacon north which may be impossible on land).

So what if we lay knocked out hidden in bushes, alone? Clearly we would be crapped out big time. This happened to a woman last year in our area on the Rimutaka's, a mountain road. Her car went off the steep side into the bush. She was conscious but could not move and did not have a cellphone (may not have worked anyway over the side). She was rescued the next day - I think a family member carefully walked the road and noticed marks indicating an accident.

However, when alone, crashed in the bush where passing motorists would not see us, it is not a given that we would be knocked out. We could be conscious but unable to walk or crawl for help, passing motorists may not hear our screams, and there may be no cell phone coverage. In this case it would be sure nice to have a personal beacon.

Most of us know how easy it is to make a error going around a curve, swing wide and go off the road. Scuba divers, trampers / hikers know that going alone is dangerous, but we motorcyclists don't give it a thought since there is usually other traffic on the road that would see our accident happen, or there would be barriers preventing us going in to the bushes.

It is all about risk management, similar to insurance. How many of us wear protective clothing, boots, helmets, and do up our car seat belts? Surely over 99% of us do so, but it sure was not like this a generation ago. I see a time when back, chest and knee protectors will be worn by many more of us, along with ear plugs.

Back to the main topic: The poll on this thread indicates that about 3/4 of us would get an emergency beacon, if the price is right. But it is not certain whether a beacon would actually be useful, or more useful than a hand held radio transceiver. What the poll does seem to indicate is that most of us are concerned about having an emergency in a remote area with no cell phone coverage, and getting help quickly. Flat tyres we can deal with but serious injury is another matter.

$530 is a lot to spend on something that would probably be / hopefully be never used. But a motorcycle club could afford it, or several friends who go dirt biking in remote areas could get one.

From mujambee's link:

A distress beacon with an encoded (GPS) location is usually detected by the RCC and located within minutes. Distress beacons that do not have the capability to provide an encoded position also provide an initial alert to the RCC within minutes, but there will be no associated position. If emergency contacts are aware of trip details or trip details have been submitted online, search operations can be commenced much sooner. If the RCC has to rely on Polar-orbiting satellites to determine the location of a beacon, the time to gain an accurate position may take longer thereby delaying search operations.

NOTE: Polar-orbiting satellites over-fly the Australian region on average every 90 minutes but passes may be anywhere from minutes to 5 hours apart. To improve response times, ensure distress beacons are registered and inform emergency contacts of trip details.

I will ring Trig Instruments again to clarify how the $530 beacon provides location; from memory I believe it relies on satellites as mentioned above so there could be a long delay which would negate the whole point of getting help quickly (quicker than finding cellphone reception or a landline and figuring out how to describe the exact location of the accident).

[Radar]

Marine VHF is a good idea as it is land based as well to pick-up on a lot of the lakes used around NZ. If you contacted Maritime NZ they can supply you with a list of all the different frequencies around NZ and there coverage.

From a Google search, I found a map of maritime radio coverage. See attached photo.

Aside from areas near Invercargill and Whangarei, the only inland Maritime Radio repeater is for Lake Taupo and maybe the Rotorua lakes - but these are HF, not VHF or UHF that are used with hand held units.

If I was a boatie and had a maritime hand held transceiver, I would take it while biking, otherwise I would think that there would be many areas where it would not work (such as inland Wairarapa).

Let's remember also that you need a license, requiring an exam (simple but a cost and hassle), and getting it for land use would not be entirely legit.

[Radar]

Ride with a buddy or tell someone where you're going and when you will be back - not very hi-tech but most effective

Yes, this is true. Going with at least one other person is the key - they will get help.

If you ride alone and leave your route and schedule, it may not be so useful. Your route may be several hundred km's - it would not be effective to search the entire route.

[CookMySock]

Is that a proposal or there exists something similar to that?

No, and no. I just pulled it out of thin air right then. Do you like it?

That (and this thread) has sparked a new idea: What about a bike2bike alert system?

Each bike could be fitted with a small unit. It usually is on receive mode, listening into a fixed frequency. If it receives an emergency signal it starts a warning (maybe horn and lights flash), so it's rider knows someone is in trouble nearby.
The emergency call could be started manually or automatically if the bike is down.

Naw I think that is overkill. All we really NEED is a cheap GPS-based beacon that works every time. As soon as you leave it on receive mode, then you have battery life to worry about. As a safety device, we must be able to pull its antenna out, and poke its button, and it goes and stays going for the next six hours at least.

Obviously this would require a lot of develoment and a lot of licensing and a lot of cooperation and a lot of money and ....

Naw it just needs one person to make one and use it, and GPL the design and make a project website for it. Everything will snowball after that. Even if it was on the amatuer 80 and 40m bands (provided it was located in a sensible manner) I think the hams would not care - in fact, I would say that they would join in with us in the monitoring of it.

Ideally though, it would need to be monitored properly, but thats just software and a receiver.


Steve

[Jantar]

A few things that have come up in this thread:

The old 121.5 monitoring by satellite has already been discontinued on Feb 1st trhis year. Some aircraft still monitor this frequency as an international distress frequency, but even if they did hear a tone they would have no idea where to look. Do not even consider one of these older beacons.

The new beacons are available with GPS at a good price, and that price is continuing to fall.

Now as to how they work: Once activated they send out a signal which is picked up by an orbiting satellite. These satellites pass over on average once every 3 hours, but as someone has already said, that isn't every 3 hours and the time can vary. If your ELB has a GPS then the location is sent to the satellite and your location is known to SAR within seconds of the satellite detecting your signal.

If your ELB does not have GPS then on the first pass a message goes to SAR saying that a signal has been received within 200 NM of the track of the satellite. From the time of first detection to loss of signal the approximate distance from the satellite track is known, but not to which side of the track. A second pass 3 hours later will narrow the search field down to a much closer area, and a third pass will bring the search down to within a few kms of the site. So anywhere from 6 to 9 hours after activation SAR know where to start looking. Having a GPS enabled beacon saves all that initial time.

[Radar]

Useful links:

Beacons
http://beacons.org.nz/

Rent a beacon
http://beacons.org.nz/rent-a-beacon.aspx

Mountain Safety
http://mountainsafety.org.nz/

How beacons work. Where to buy or rent beacons.
http://www.mountainsafety.org.nz/ass...tions_2005.pdf


Q's and A's
http://beacons.org.nz/QA.aspx

What are the different types of beacons?

EPIRB’s - Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacons are distress beacons designed for maritime environments. These devices are designed to float in water.

PLB’s - Personal Locator Beacons are designed for personal use, mainly by bushwalkers, cross-country vehicle clubs, mountaineers and other adventurers on land. They’re also used in gliders. They're small and lightweight, and designed to fit into pockets. They are manually operated.


[EDIT - $498 beacon deleted - US dollars!]
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Found this comment on a NZ tramping site:

Regarding evac within a few hours, vs having to wait till the evening to get a message out and wait till the next day for evac, there are plenty of possible injuries where this time could mean the difference between surviving (or surviving with faculties intact) and not. - Chris. (doctor in my spare time.)

[mujambee]

Do you like it?

Yes

As soon as you leave it on receive mode, then you have battery life to worry about.

It would run on the bike's power.

Naw it just needs one person to make one and use it, and GPL the design and make a project website for it. Everything will snowball after that. Even if it was on the amatuer 80 and 40m bands (provided it was located in a sensible manner) I think the hams would not care - in fact, I would say that they would join in with us in the monitoring of it.

If it's light enough you could probably get trekkers, cyclists, hunters, fishers and all other "wildlife" into it.

I think I'm going to get deeper into this, may lead to something usefull after all.

$498 Beacon with GPS
http://www.aviationsafety.co.nz/personal.htm

Did you notice those are US$ ?


Does anyone know if you can purchase those things in one coutry and use them on other? If price difference is that big I'm probably getting one or two when I'm there next summer (winter).

[Radar]

Did you notice those are US$ ?

Does anyone know if you can purchase those things in one coutry and use them on other? If price difference is that big I'm probably getting one or two when I'm there next summer (winter).

No - crap, now its too expensive. I assumed that since it was a NZ site they would have NZ gear. Back to Trig Instruments...

Other NZ sites have warned not to use beacons from other countries - not sure why though.

[Radar]

Another option we were given for back counrty riding and have used instead of a beacon was a satellite radio. Hire cost for three days riding was $40.00and just as small as a beacon to carry .
After speaking with the search and rescue person here in Dunedin the radio is a better tool for motorcyclists in his mind as once connected (connect aerial )
we can tell someone at the other end exactly what our issue is and where we are in the area's that we stated when picking it up .

Room for thought maybe ?

A satellite phone seems the best option, but the most expensive.

Telecom satellite phones HERE.
From the Telecom page:
Callers pay normal calling charges to a Telecom mobile.
Cost for phone is $2000 plus GST.
Monthly access: $30 - the 111 emergency number is free to use but I guess you still would need to set up a plan...?

Conclusion: Way too expensive to purchase.

[CookMySock]

It would run on the bike's power.

If it's light enough you could probably get trekkers, cyclists, hunters, fishers and all other "wildlife" into it.

Agreed, but I think it needs to be fully portable. It does not need all that power from a motorcycle battery, and also trampers probably will not be carrying a motorcycle battery with them hehehe.

A PSK31 transmitter is a tiny thing, and because it is so narrow bandwidth it can communicate large distances with very small output power. So it has a GPS receiver, microcontroller, PSK31 transmitter on 3.5 and 7 MHz (or elsewhere), one-shot long-life lithium battery, pull out antenna, all packed in a box the size of a pack of smokes, and it needs to very tough, reliable, and fully waterproof.

The HF transmitter(s) need a DDS chip so it is frequency agile. The microcontroller needs GPL firmware and a USB connector, so users or user groups can reprogram it from their home PC. Mountaineering clubs can task up a few dozen of them at once, or hams can run it on 40M. Others can run the unit continuously as a GPS tracker ala APRS.

edit: google keywords: psk31 beacon dds-60
edit: http://www.ringolake.com/pic_proj/PSK31/pic_psk31.html
edit: http://www.ussc.com/~turner/psk_transmitter.html

Steve

[jim.cox]

Other NZ sites have warned not to use beacons from other countries - not sure why though.

The Beacons have a serial number that is tied to the country of issue

That way when a signal is received they know where to start looking for who owns it...

While I dont want one, the GME units with gps as sold by Trig do look good, and the price is reasonable

[Radar]

Spot Satellite Messenger gives text messenging anywhere. The cost is $115 USD per year, so this could be a good option for clubs.

Thanks to the Fielding Riders group for posting about this.

[mujambee]

Spot Satellite Messenger gives text messenging anywhere. The cost is $115 USD per year, so this could be a good option for clubs.

Thanks to the Fielding Riders group for posting about this.

Don't like the suscription and all. You shouldn't depend on a private company for this kind of service. And with the 406 beacons at 500 NZ$, youll pay for 3 years and get lifetime (*cough*) service.

[Radar]

Don't like the suscription and all. You shouldn't depend on a private company for this kind of service. And with the 406 beacons at 500 NZ$, youll pay for 3 years and get lifetime (*cough*) service.

I don't like a subscription charge either, but the Spot Messenger gives two way communication. The problem with a Personal Locator Beacon is the emergency services (or your friends and family who are alerted) will not know what is wrong, what type of rescue / medical attention is needed, or if it is a false alert - all this can take precious time to sort out.