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TAKING THE SEARCH OUT OF SEARCH AND RESCUE
IT WON"T HAPPEN TO ME!
How many times has that been said by someone who ends up being rescued or worse?
Emergency location beacons are your last resort way of summoning help in the event of a catastrophe. Purchasing a unit gives you and your family great peace of mind.
Beware when buying a 406 from overseas!
Each country has an individual 406 code. When
you purchase a 406MHz distress beacon, it needs to be programmed for the New Zealand Rescue Co-ordination Centre. If you buy one from overseas or over the
Internet, it could be an expensive mistake. Units designed to operate in our area are programmed with a unique identity including the New Zealand country code number 512. A unit obtained from elsewhere would have to be reprogrammed by a registered service centre at your cost. If this is not done, when the unit is activated the satellite
may notify the wrong rescue coordination centre which could mean a long,
potentially life-threatening delay in your rescue.
An Emergency
Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB) or Personal
Locator Beacon (PLB) is used to alert search and rescue services in the
event of an emergency. They do this by transmitting
a coded message on the 406 MHz distress frequency. This message is
relayed via satellite and earth station to the nearest rescue co-ordination
centre.
406 MHz EPIRBs and PLBs work with
the Cospas-Sarsat polar orbiting satellite system which provides true global
coverage. The system has an alert delay of typically 45 minutes dependant on
when the satellites come into view on the horizon.
The satellite can determine the
position of your Smartfind E5 EPIRB or Fastfind PLB to within 5km (3 miles).
The coded message identifies the exact vessel to which the E5 is registered or
the person the Fastfind PLB is registered to. This information allows the
rescue services to eliminate false alerts and launch an appropriate rescue.
The GPS enabled Smartfind Plus G5
406 MHz EPIRB and Fastfind Plus PLB have built-in transmitters that will
typically alert the rescue services within a few minutes.
Smartfind Plus is capable
of providing typical positional accuracy of +/- 50 Metres and position updates
every 20 minutes, given a clear view skyward.
Both the Smartfind EPIRBs and
Fastfind PLBs also have a secondary distress transmitter. This transmits on
121.5 MHz and is used for “homing” purposes. When the rescue services get
close, this allows them to direction find on the signal. To cater for searches
at night, the Smartfind EPIRBs have a high brightness LED flashing light that
aids final visual location.
Since its inception in 1982 the
Cospas-Sarsat System has provided distress alert information which has assisted
in the rescue of over 18,865 persons in 5,317 distress situations. The Cospas-Sarsat
Programme assists search and rescue (SAR) activities on a worldwide basis by
providing accurate, timely, and reliable distress alert and location data to
the international community on a non-discriminatory basis.
The GPS EPIRB and PLB have been designed
to enhance further the lifesaving capabilities of conventional beacons. The
standard Global Positioning System (GPS) uses an array of 27 satellites and
provides continuous positional information with a typical accuracy of around 50m. A 406MHz EPIRB such as the
Smartfind Plus or PLB such as the Fastfind Plus has a built in GPS, when
the beacon is activated in an emergency, positional information is incorporated
into the distress message which it transmits.
This diagram shows the relative response scenarios to the different systems
Please Note - These units are of extremely high quality and are built in the UK to exacting standards.
