PLB vs. satellite tracker?

A

Artimas

Pre-takeoff checklist
Joined
Dec 10, 2013
Messages
214
Location
New Jersey
Display Name
Display name:
Artimas
Which of these technologies do you think is better for a basic emergency "find me" device?

The PLB is more expensive, but doesn't require a monthly subscription, thus cheaper in the long run. It also needs to be turned on to send a signal. They are larger to carry. Their signal is stronger and lasts longer.

A tracker (Spot, InReach, etc.) is always transmitting a position (but needs a clear view of the sky, and can be used to do basic communications. They are smaller and cheaper to buy, but the subscription cost makes it more expensive after a year or so.

I suppose having both would be best, especially if flying over remote areas, but which would you choose for flying in more populated areas (if you had to pick just one)?

I am leaning towards the PLB, but was interested in others opinions.

Thanks.
 
Just my experience.... I bought my wife a Spot at Oshkosh this year, intending for her to use it in her work airplane, in our airplane, and when she's out walking/hiking as she travels around the country. We were all excited about the safety enhancement of the new technology. It failed miserably.

The unit will track in a car....IF it's on the dash, the antenna is pointed straight up, and no obstructions. It will not track laying on the glare shield of the 182 horizontally, or sitting vertically under a (tinted) skylight. If I hold it in my hand vertically over the glare shield, it will track.

When she's out walking, it will track until she goes under a tree. You can imagine there are several of those on hiking trails in the forest. In the same locations, her GPS-powered fitness app tracks her every move. Restriction for the fitness app (as a safety feature) is that it won't 'phone home' if she quits moving.

Due to the above, she has not bothered to try it in her work airplane, and it's sitting on the floor by my chair, somewhere down my list of 'I need to see if I can make that work's'. The $400 annual subscription keeps ticking away. In fair disclosure, we have not called Spot for assistance...maybe they could help....dunno. I'm a retired IT geek, tho, so it's not a case of techno phobia.

FWIW....

Jim
 
I haven't tried a Spot, but I used an InReach for my recent flight all around the arctic. It tracked perfectly the whole time (150+ hours of flying) while sitting on the glare shield of my 182.
 
I had a Spot...... sold it and bought a ACR PLB. The PLB is direct to government emergency resources, not a third party company. It also has a 121.5 elt that activates with the 406 beacon.

Sending a text is not important to me if I need real help now. As a Bahamas flyer, I don’t want a spot or Inreach. ..... I want help right now.
 
Jim Rosenow said:
Just my experience.... I bought my wife a Spot at Oshkosh this year, intending for her to use it in her work airplane, in our airplane, and when she's out walking/hiking as she travels around the country. We were all excited about the safety enhancement of the new technology. It failed miserably.

The unit will track in a car....IF it's on the dash, the antenna is pointed straight up, and no obstructions. It will not track laying on the glare shield of the 182 horizontally, or sitting vertically under a (tinted) skylight. If I hold it in my hand vertically over the glare shield, it will track.

When she's out walking, it will track until she goes under a tree. You can imagine there are several of those on hiking trails in the forest. In the same locations, her GPS-powered fitness app tracks her every move. Restriction for the fitness app (as a safety feature) is that it won't 'phone home' if she quits moving.

Due to the above, she has not bothered to try it in her work airplane, and it's sitting on the floor by my chair, somewhere down my list of 'I need to see if I can make that work's'. The $400 annual subscription keeps ticking away. In fair disclosure, we have not called Spot for assistance...maybe they could help....dunno. I'm a retired IT geek, tho, so it's not a case of techno phobia.

FWIW....

Jim
Click to expand...
I had a Spot and faced the same issues as you are having, then add that their coverage is not universal. I let the subscription expire and have replaced it with an Inreach.

So far it has tracked flawlessly on a trip to Whittier on the Alaska Ferry, my flight to Wasilla in my 180 and a drive up the Alcan. I'll probably try it in the MD-11 one day if I remember to bring it with me to work.

Overall I'm pretty happy with Inreach.
 
I've carried a McMurdo FastFind Plus PLB (with internal GPS receiver) for several years when I fly, sail offshore, or when I drive on long road trips. It's cheap insurance.
 
Artimas said:
but was interested in others opinions.
Click to expand...
As mentioned above, a PLB is a direct signal to SARSAT. And most commercial flight applications I've seen use strictly PLBs with the ACR brand the most popular. More expensive yes, but I don't think that $100 will mean much when you really need it.
 
No PLB. In a plane I’d rather have a GPS enabled ELT. On the ground I’d rather have an Inreach. In real life I have both. And Spidertracks. And a sat phone. Different solutions for different situations.
 
Most if not all of the new PLB’s are GPS enabled ELT’s. They are just small and hand held. I have one of those and a 406 in the plane. And a sat phone in case I just need someone to bring me something and not the Calvary. Sat phone subscription isn’t the cheapest but not bad and the minutes roll over and you can text with it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Stewartb said:
No PLB. In a plane I’d rather have a GPS enabled ELT. On the ground I’d rather have an Inreach. In real life I have both. And Spidertracks. And a sat phone. Different solutions for different situations.
Click to expand...


Paranoid?
 
150C0F95-B9FC-4D16-8A0A-51A8E8E16FE5.png Nope, not at all. Different equipment for different activities. There’s a lot more to life than flying.

Re: tracking. Spidertracks does a lot more than just track me. It texts my wife every time I take off and land so she knows that I got to where I was going. Like yesterday. Me in Alaska, her in Texas. Automatic communication and the best safety device I own for an airplane. A couple of weeks ago a very popular local 135 pilot was killed in a crash in the Alaska Range. The airplane had Spidertracks. His home base knew the moment it happened and knew exactly where the wreck was. I don’t know for sure but I doubt the ELT survived. A PLB would have been unused.

Here’s a screen shot from my Spidertracks app. Yesterday’s quick hop to the cabin. Position pings at 2 minute intervals. Highlight any ping and I get the info you see at the lower left. Wife can watch in real time. Map, terrain, or satellite views at the tap of a button. In satellite view she can see exactly where the plane is when the landing or takeoff notifications come in. Those notifications are driven by airspeed thresholds that I choose. The Inreach pings are similar but at 10 minute intervals unless you buy a better plan. But no automatic notifications. My wife and daughter are big fans of Spidertracks since I often forget to call home, and that makes my flying life much easier.
 
Last edited:
Stan Cooper said:
I've carried a McMurdo FastFind Plus PLB (with internal GPS receiver) for several years when I fly, sail offshore, or when I drive on long road trips. It's cheap insurance.
Click to expand...
That is exactly what I have and do, sans sailing.
 
In case anyone’s interested, here’s a sat view of the termination of the flight over. When I blow up the view the sat picture is winter. It isn’t winter but the location and direction of my landing is spot on. It captured the landing because of the landing notification trigger speed. 1D09F313-CB22-498A-BE21-F58B52B8FAE8.png
 
Jim Rosenow said:
Just my experience.... I bought my wife a Spot at Oshkosh this year, intending for her to use it in her work airplane, in our airplane, and when she's out walking/hiking as she travels around the country. We were all excited about the safety enhancement of the new technology. It failed miserably.

The unit will track in a car....IF it's on the dash, the antenna is pointed straight up, and no obstructions. It will not track laying on the glare shield of the 182 horizontally, or sitting vertically under a (tinted) skylight. If I hold it in my hand vertically over the glare shield, it will track.

When she's out walking, it will track until she goes under a tree. You can imagine there are several of those on hiking trails in the forest. In the same locations, her GPS-powered fitness app tracks her every move. Restriction for the fitness app (as a safety feature) is that it won't 'phone home' if she quits moving.

Due to the above, she has not bothered to try it in her work airplane, and it's sitting on the floor by my chair, somewhere down my list of 'I need to see if I can make that work's'. The $400 annual subscription keeps ticking away. In fair disclosure, we have not called Spot for assistance...maybe they could help....dunno. I'm a retired IT geek, tho, so it's not a case of techno phobia.

FWIW....

Jim
Click to expand...
My SPOT Gen III works just fine in the Cardinal's dash area FWIW.
 
My spot Gen III works very good even just sitting face up in the back of a 172. I usually send it with my students when they are doing solo cross countries so I can check in on them.

As to the OP’s question. For emergency equipment, Ie the box you will likely never use and is a lump of coal until you have an emergency, then you want an PLB as it turns to gold when you need it.

For a device you can use every flight then you want a satellite tracker. It will still likely call for help if you need it. Best of all you can test how well it communicates every flight also.

Brian
 
I've had a McMurdo FastFind for so long I actually had to send it in to get a new battery, so at least 7 or 8 years now. I considered the Spot but that would have been an extra $800 to have it for that length of time. Another thing to consider is that if you like the tracking feature of the Spot or the ability to send "I'm okay" messages then you might get in the habit of doing that and if the Spot has any sort of problem with signal or function and you can't send that "I'm okay" message it in effect sends a false alarm. I'm not saying it's a big problem or that it happens all the time but it has the potential of possibly creating some undue stress.

Bottom line is that either one is better than nothing. I look at it as a failsafe meaning something I would use when all else fails including using my cellphone or walking out. If you buy a Spot it's because you probably intend to use it. The hardest thing about buying a PLB is forking out three or four hundred bucks and you don't even get to play with it.

Also I'd mention if you get a PLB carry it on your person, not stashed in a flight bag.
 
All areas are "remote", given the size of most GA airplanes. We tend to think because we can see civilization from above, that civilization will notice us from below. It don't.

I've been on searches conducted mostly in or near Class B airspace, near two big cities, and one took us a week to find the wreck - ELT failed, which is real common.
 
I have a EPIRB but I get flamed for it lol
 
I have an ACR PLB I'm quite happy with. Would a live tracking system like Garmin inReach be better? Absolutely, but I have a hard time stomaching the monthly subscription costs for those.

If I were to go with a tracker, I'd go Garmin over SPOT.
 
+1 ACR PLB. I can grab it and activate it in < 5 sec...
 
My brother lives on a boat and has a SPOT. I keep my PLB attached to the strap of my pack that I carry with me whenever I'm out and about.
 
"Should I use flight following, or a flight plan?" Same sort of question. Two different tools for two different purposes.

The tracker is like flight following. Someone can watch over you and see where you are right now, and maybe they can get in touch with someone if they suspect something has gone wrong, and give your most recent position.

The PLB is like the flight plan - It's a direct way of getting search and rescue to you as fast as possible.

Were I flying in a super-remote area, and my wife wasn't with me, I'd probably get one of each.
 
Both are insurance with no guarantees. I remember a story of a couple who went missing and a year later the airplane was found in a ravine less than a mile from the departure end of the runway. A small airplane can very quickly take you to what is essentially a “remote” place even if you are in a relatively populated area but every precaution you take has the potential of paying off under the right circumstances. Even making sure your cellphone is fully charged.
 
My 2 cents as a 911 dispatcher and someone who is responsible for dealing with the folks who relay the info from your beacon.....

If you want the bells and whistles and are not going to be too far off the beaten path. Buy an inReach. It is a much superior product than the SPOT. It has a higher power output than the SPOT, which means when its overcast and raining or snowing, you have a better chance of having your PLB send a more accurate location. And it really sucks when the SPOT Response Center calls us and says that due to the weather, the accuracy of the plot is give or take 100 meters. Well, that is fine if you are out in the flat lands, but when you are deep in the Cascade Mtns, and 100 meters means you are either on the top of a ridge in one county or in 2000' below the ridge in the river valley in another county with a completely different rescue route, or maybe you' re on that ledge halfway down the mountain...that just makes the person who is gonna send the SAR team out want to eat a bullet.

If you are out in the sticks or the middle of the ocean and your life depends on getting a signal out so the cavalry will come and save your ass and that is all you care about, get an ACR. And if you use it to get rescued, they will replace it for free.

On a side note, I sent an email to ACR as I was putting together a short PLB training course for my co workers. ACR responded within 2 hours and had a 'demo' unit in the mail within three days. SPOT still has yet to respond to my 5 emails. I've pretty much given up on them. And if that is how SPOT responds to someone who may have an influence on what unit someone buys....well...

I have owned an inReach for about 4 years. I'm really happy with it. I carry it whenever I'm on the road. usually attached to the left side strap on my backpack. On the motorcycle, I carry it in the chest pocket of the Roadcrafter suit. Ain't gonna do me any good if its on the bike and I crash and the bike is 20 yds down the embankment and I can't reach it. Our Emergency Management office bought about a dozen inReach's last year. That's how much they trusted Garmin over SPOT.

Do your due dillegence and compare the offerings. Figure out what, exactly, you expect from the PLB. How much do you want to spend? Don't just look at the outright cost. What are the monthly plans priced at. ACR is a one time purchase price. BUT, you will have to send the unit back every couple of years to replace the battery. SPOT and inReach not only have a purchase price, but in order to use them you gotta pay per month (or upfront). You don't have a plan? Then the unit is basically a door stop. Do your research. Only then can you make an informed decision.

On our next trip overseas, we plan on doing some motorcycling out on the less traveled roads of Thailand and Laos and possibly Vietnam. I will be pairing the inReach with an ACR Res-Q-Link.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top