ACR Electronics MicroFix 2898 User Manual download pdf

1 2 • The Aviation Consumer w w w. avi a t i o n co n su m e r. c o m Jun e 2008

A I R C R A F T S A F E T Y

Rescue Me:

Accusat Is Our Top PLB

It’s small, light, strobe equipped and the price is right.

With 121.5 Mhz ELTs on the way out, any one of these

gadgets can substitute for a 406 ELT—to a degree.

by Joseph E. (Jeb) Burnside

mergency locator transmitters

(ELTs) are one piece of equip-

ment airplane owners love to

hate. They don’t work very well and

they always seem to need replacement

batteries. Beginning next year, the gov-

ernment will cease satellite monitor-

ing of 121.5 MHz ELTs, making what

didn’t work that well to begin with

instantly all but useless.

Rather than invest as much as

$4000 in a new 406 MHz ELT, one

option owners have asked us about is

carrying one of the new 406 MHz,

GPS-enhanced portable locator

beacons or PLBs. They’re relatively

inexpensive, have a good record thus

far and can do double duty as an

ELT and a rescue-me beacon for the

car, the boat or outdoor activities of

all kinds. While this makes sense,

there are some limitations. Read on.

On February 1, 2009, COSPAS-

SARSAT, the international organiza-

tion formed to oversee the ELT sat-

ellite-monitoring network, will stop

listening for the 121.5

and 243.0 MHz signals

from traditional ELTs. A new

ELT standard (TSO C126) using

digital technology and 406.025

MHz is a huge step forward, but

these aren’t required equipment.

Yet. The FAA so far has refused to

expand the ELT requirement to

embrace 406 ELTs and until prices

for these come down from the

ﬂight levels, PLBs remain

an attractive alternative.

We looked at ﬁve cur-

rent-generation mod-

els from ﬁve dif-

ferent manufacturers.

While they all perform the

same basic task—broadcasting your

location with a GPS ﬁx encoded—

there are differences between them.

Worth noting here is that the

oversight agencies take a dim view

of setting these things off willy-nilly

to see if they work, thus we were

unable to test them in the heat of

battle. For that reason, our evalua-

tions are based on examination of

the units and their speciﬁcations

and interviews with the manufac-

turers. For a detailed live test of

PLBs, we recommend reading a re-

port on the trials conducted by the

Equipped to Survive Foundation at

www.equipped.org. New models,

including some covered here, have

been introduced since that test was

conducted.

OVERVIEW

Current-generation PLBs are basi-

cally a portable 406 ELT without

the crash-impact activation feature.

You have to switch it on manually,

something which involves extend-

ing an antenna and pressing a

button. PLB designs are of two basic

types: With or without a built-in

5.9 IN

2.2 IN

2.4 IN

5.8 IN

2.1 IN

5.3 IN

2.8 IN

5.1 IN

3.4 IN

MICRO PLB GX

ACR MICROFIX MCMURDO FAST FIND

KANNAD XS-3

GME ACCUSAT

Jun e 20081 2 • The Aviation Consumer w w w. avi a t i o n co n su m e r. c o m

1 2 3 4

Summary of Contents

Page 1 - Accusat Is Our Top PLB

1 2 • The Aviation Consumer w w w. avi a t i o n co n su m e r. c o m Jun e 2008A I R C R A F T S A F E T YRescue Me:Accusat Is Our Top

Page 2 - KANNAD 406 XS3 GPS

Jun e 2008 w w w. avi a t i o n co n su m e r. c o m The Aviation Consumer • 1 3GPS receiver. Sending the GPS coordi-nates to th

Page 3 - ContaCtS

1 4 • The Aviation Consumer w w w. avi a t i o n co n su m e r. c o m Jun e 2008ton. A pictogram explains it all.The 406 XS-3 GPS is the

Page 4 - WSI Beats XM By a Hair

Jun e 2008 w w w. avi a t i o n co n su m e r. c o m The Aviation Consumer • 1 5GPS is designed to survive a crash and broadcast

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ACR Electronics MicroFix 2898 User Manual

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