Quote:
Originally Posted by chuckr
Dockhead -- thanks for this -- we will take a hard look as we have a couple of personal epirps on board and their battery life is just about over. So this may be a great replacement.
Have to do a bit more research first through.
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I don't think these are an exact substitute for a PLB, so you might consider changing the batts in your PLBs as well.
I keep a PLB in my life jacket and don't even have an
EPIRB, as I am rarely more than a couple hundred miles
offshore these days. If the SHTF, I would have
VHF DSC and HF DSC for emergency signalling from the boat, and flares! In these waters with dense
shipping, old fashioned pyrotechnical flares are still very effective.
Then, if I have to get into the
liferaft, I have the PLB and a handheld DSC
VHF with a lot of spare
batteries. And more flares.
If I fall
overboard when
single handed, God forbid, I'm probably dead in these cold waters, but I do have the PLB which sends out a 121mhz homing signal besides the
satellite signal.
I think an AIS/DSC
MOB device like this would be just perfect, if I could only figure out how to buy one. But I wouldn't give up the PLB, which is another leg in the system.
All this emergency signalling might sound like massive overkill to someone, but I just don't think there is a such thing as overkill, where this is concerned. I do not want to die, and do not want any of my friends or loved ones to die, because he or she or we could not be found after some kind of disaster, and a few redundant methods to ensure that seems like the right approach to me.