Author: kevin

Beacons are manufactured, marketed and sold competitively by several different companies through a variety of vendor chains.

Cospas-Sarsat (working with the manufacturer and independent laboratories) rigorously tests and “type approves” beacon models before they go into production to ensure that production beacons sold to the public can be expected to operate under a variety of extreme conditions.

The International Cospas-Sarsat Programme does not itself manufacture, market or sell beacons. A list of manufacturers is available at our Professionals website under “Contact Lists” (Pro).

The first consideration in selecting a beacon is the type of environment in which you expect to use it. A 406-MHz beacon designed for use in an aircraft is known as an Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT).[1] One designed for use aboard a marine vessel is called an Emergency Position-Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB). And one that is designed to be carried by an individual (such as while hiking/trekking) is known as a Personal Locator Beacon (PLB). Sometimes PLBs are carried aboard aircraft or vessels, but you must check with local authorities about the circumstances under which this is permitted.

Beacons have different features for activation in an emergency. Most beacons can be activated manually by a person pressing a button. Most ELTs are designed to be activated automatically by a physical shock, such as in a crash, and most EPIRBs are designed to be automatically activated by contact with water. Some EPIRBs are designed to be held in a bracket outside of the vessel such that it will “float free” and activate automatically if the vessel sinks. PLBs usually have only a manual activation capability. There are many variations of activation and deployment features for beacons to suit many, many different situations and needs, so you should evaluate these features carefully.

During type-approval testing, beacon models are evaluated to one of two temperature extremes: -40 degrees Celsius (which receives a Class 1 type approval) and -20 degrees Celsius (which receives a Class 2 type approval).

Many beacon models not only transmit a distress message on 406 MHz for satellite reception, they also transmit a lower powered signal on 121.5 MHz as a reference for local search teams to “home” in on the signal once they arrive near the location calculated for the beacon. In some countries such a “homing transmitter” is a mandatory beacon feature.

Although the Cospas-Sarsat System is designed to independently locate activated distress beacons with good accuracy, many beacons now also are equipped with an integrated receiver chip for the beacon to determine its own location using signals from global navigation satellite systems (GNSS), such as GPS, GLONASS or GALILEO. If the integrated receiver chip is able to calculate a location for the beacon, that location is reported in the distress message transmitted from the beacon. GNSS-equipped beacons provide helpful redundancy in determining the beacon location and in certain circumstances can reduce the time needed for Cospas-Sarsat to locate the beacon.

Some aviation ELTs and marine EPIRBs may have an interface that allows the beacon to have location data reported to it by the avionics or marine electronics so that the information is continuously updated, stored and available to be transmitted if the beacon is activated.

A list of type-approved beacon models with some details about model features is available on our Professionals website under “Approved Beacon Models” (Pro/Beacons/Beacon Information).

A few beacons, with exceptional characteristics, may not meet all of the standards for type-approval, but still may be approved for use with Cospas-Sarsat by virtue of a “letter of compatibility”. Such beacons may be perfectly suitable for your particular needs, but you will need to take extra care to be certain that is the case.

While Cospas-Sarsat (working with the manufacturer and independent laboratories) rigorously tests and “type approves” beacon models before they go into production to ensure that production beacons sold to the public can be expected to operate under a variety of extreme conditions, Cospas-Sarsat type approval alone does NOT qualify the beacon for sale or use in any particular country, nor determine whether the beacon satisfies local and international regulatory requirements regarding aircraft and vessels. You must check with your local authorities about the number and types of beacons that may be required on your aircraft or vessel. Some of this information may be found in the “Beacon Regulations Handbook” (Pro/Beacons/Beacon Information).

If your aircraft/vessel makes international voyages, you may be subject to specific requirements established by the International Civil Aviation Organization (e.g., Annex 6, Part 1 of the ICAO Convention) or the International Maritime Organization (e.g., Chapter IV of the IMO’s Convention on Safety of Life at Sea).

Beacon manufacturers establish their own marketing and retailing chains. Aviation ELTs usually can be purchased at aviation equipment supply stores or service facilities. Similarly, marine EPIRBs usually can be purchased at marine supply stores or service facilities. PLBs usually can be purchased at sporting-goods and outdoor-goods stores. Beacons of all types can be purchased from vendors on the internet. Please note that if you purchase a beacon from a vendor in a country different from the one where your aircraft/vessel is flagged, or different from your country of residence, in order to successfully register the beacon you may need to have the “country code” that has been electronically encoded in the beacon reprogrammed to a new (your current) country code by an authorized service facility at an additional cost.

Registering your beacon may make the difference between life and death. By registering your beacon you allow search-and-rescue authorities in an emergency to retrieve crucial information about you, your aircraft or vessel, and people who can provide valuable information about you (your emergency contacts).

Register your beacon by visiting https://406registration.com.

To see a news story and video about the importance of registering your beacon visit https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2020/02/survivor-s-plea-register-your-emergency-beacons.html.

Your registration information is maintained in databases that are operated by governments and/or the Cospas-Sarsat Secretariat (depending on choices made by the government associated with the “country code” programmed into your beacon). When you visit www.406registration.com and enter your beacon’s identification (ID) code you will be instructed about how you need to register your beacon (depending on the beacon’s “country code”). Registration is a mandatory requirement in many countries, and also for certain aircraft that are subject to the rules of the International Civil Aviation Organization and for certain vessels that are subject to the rules of the International Maritime Organization.

Under NO circumstances can the Cospas-Sarsat Secretariat register a beacon by telephone, facsimile, e-mail or mail. You must go to www.406registration.com to see how your beacon can be registered.

(Note that, in addition to registration, local or international regulations may require that your aircraft or vessel identification be electronically encoded into your beacon so that it is transmitted in the alert message when your beacon is activated. This only can be done by a properly qualified service facility. Check with the manufacturer of your beacon.)

The information about your beacon that you place in the registration databases is for use by search-and-rescue authorities, and is viewable only by them, associated government agencies and the Cospas-Sarsat Secretariat. NO information that you place in the registration databases is made available to commercial entities and it is NOT used for any commercial purpose whatsoever.

Depending on the database in which you are instructed to register your beacon (which depends on the “country code” programmed into the beacon), you will be asked to supply certain kinds of information. This may include:

• The beacon’s identification, which is a hexadecimal character string (composed of the characters 0-9 and A-F) found on a label attached to every beacon. You will always be asked for this beacon ID because it is the best (and often only) way to uniquely distinguish your beacon from all others.
• Your name, address, telephone number and other contact details.
• The identification and description of your aircraft if your beacon is an aviation ELT, or your vessel if your beacon is a marine EPIRB, and its home port.
• The kinds of survival equipment and communications equipment normally carried.
• Emergency contact information for those organizations or persons who may be able to provide additional details about aircraft/vessel characteristics, travel plans, supplies likely carried by those in distress, etc.

When a distress alert message from your beacon is relayed to a national-government Search-and-Rescue Point of Contact (SPOCs) that has the responsibility to react to the alert, the information that you have provided during beacon registration is also provided to the rescue authorities. It is easy to understand how important this information can be to rescue authorities as they are organizing a search-and-rescue effort. Also, by attempting to contact you using your contact information, or contacting those that you have listed as emergency contacts during registration, rescue authorities are better able to determine if the distress alert is real or inadvertent. If the alert is real, they will have information that improves the chances of them finding you and saving your life. If the alert is inadvertent, it means that limited search-and-rescue resources are not unintentionally diverted from someone in real distress.

Just as important as registering your beacon when you first acquire it, is the need to update the information when your circumstances change. If you move the beacon to a different aircraft/vessel, or if the contact information for yourself or your emergency contacts change, you must update this information in the registration database. It is strongly recommended that you take a few minutes at least every two years to review and update the information in the registration database. This is a mandatory requirement in some countries. Likewise, if you sell or transfer your beacon to someone else, you need to indicate this in the registration database and encourage the new owner to properly register the beacon for themselves.

If you decide to dispose of an old, unneeded beacon you need to be careful to take certain steps. Do NOT merely toss the beacon in a garbage or rubbish bin. If you do this, over time the casing and electronics could degrade, possibly causing the beacon to begin transmitting a false alert from, for example, a garbage heap. This could divert limited search-and-rescue resources from a real emergency, putting other lives at risk. Instead you must have the battery removed, you must have the beacon clearly labeled on the outside that it has been deactivated (so that no one mistakenly tries to use it in a real emergency), AND you must update your information in the registration database to indicate that you have disposed of the beacon. When possible, the components of your old beacon should be properly recycled.