I had an ELB (emergency locator beacon, the marine version of a PLB) when I crossed the Atlantic. After that the FCC was doing a study in Alaska on PLB’s. Alaska is chosen for these studies because of the low population level. The head of the Troopers in my town and I were chosen to be on the committee due to our jobs. In a meeting I commented that I would just use my ELB if the need should arise. The Trooper said he would arrest me if I did as that was only licensed for marine use. I told him that he would have to save my life before he could arrest me. I pointed out that if I broke into his house it was a crime, but if I broke into a remote cabin in order to save my life it was not a crime.
Yep - the other name for those marine ELBs is EPIRB (Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon).
In the early days of those, there was some sort of distinction about marine vs land use......but over time practicality crept into the rules and providing you were in a life threatening emergency, no one really cares which you use now.
There are still some differences between EPIRBs and PLBs:
EPIRB Vs PLB: What's the Difference between a PLB and EPIRB?
| PLB | EPIRB |
|---|
| Transmission Duration | A minimum of 24 hours (as long as battery is in date) | At least 48 hours |
| Floatation | Not all float and may require additional floatation support | All devices float |
Those differences are how PLBs can be so much smaller than EPIRBs - smaller battery and less bulky (because they do not have to be positively buoyant). EPIRBs are also designed to be self righting ie keep their antenna facing skywards even in rough seas.
The problem with both is this:
What if you have an emergency.....but your life is not threatened yet.
For example, I know of a case where a family (two parents and two young kids) were driving their offroad truck based camper across the center of Australia.....and they encountered a desert storm that dropped 4 inches of rain in 24 hours. That was enough to turn where they were into a quagmire. They got bogged down to the axles. They spent a few days trying to dig themselves out.....with no success. They still had a few weeks of water and food.
They decided to deploy their PLB and about three hours later they were overflown by an SAR fixed wing aircraft that dropped them a Sat phone.
They get the Sat phone and it rings.....they answer "Hello?"
They explain their situation and the SAR center tells them, we will get you out of there as soon as we can. The story is then released by the SAR people to the media (including video captured during the flyover). They communicate with the SAR people for a couple of days and are informed that they will be evacuated by chopper the next day....they reply "What about the truck.........if you send a recovery truck out here, it could pull us out". The answer was "We don't save trucks, we save people."
So they get evacuated by chopper (with long range tanks) and then the husband has to arrange to go back in with a recovery truck to pull their camper out.
So one could ask "Was that the best response?"
They were not in immediate danger........but when you deploy an EPIRB or PLB, you lose control over what will happen.
If they had an InReach or Sat phone of their own, they could have contacted family and a recovery service to arrange to get pulled out........so the response would have been quite different.......and they would not have become a national media story without their consent.
Not every emergency is the same.
Have some fun with life.
