Safety Thingy - PLIRB or Whatever they Call Em

IMO,if I was putting it on my boat I would get a new EPIRB. If was using it on other people's boat I would buy a new PLB. All the new ones come with a 10 yr battery whereas the old ones had 5 yr batteries and I think you couldn't have them replaced after the unit was 10 years old.

My battery runs out in April. All my flares expire in June.

The newest resQlink has some upgrades from the one I have - and a 7 yr battery. A $300 increase over new battery cost.

I'm real confused now - can't find the one with the 7 yr battery...  Thot' it was the 425 model, but they also have a 435 but neither 425 or 435 are shown on the ACR site.

So - i thot' was looking at a 7 yr battery with 28 hr battery life that would have RLS - basically let you know help was on the way.

I'm not finding it today and making me wonder about getting my nugget checked.


*They do have a little one that has 1 button that has a 7 yr battery.


Think you've convinced me to just get the battery replaced.  Couple places do that.  Do have a test function so will check that.  

I'm usually 10-15 miles out on public numbers, carry the flares & such, handheld 6 watt VHF, and the ResQlink.

I also have the wireless man over board kill switch installed on my center console which I wear on my wrist. Kills the outboard if it touches water. Good for man overboard situations, bad for reaching into the live well.

www.fellmarine.com/eu/product/mob-basepack/

Ohh yeah on my Jon boat, tiller to kill switch lanyard. Not installing the MOB switch on my Jon

Trying to decide which one of the top-end 3 to get. It is a $30-$50 diff and that's not enough to even worry about. Just do it is what my brain is saying.

The IR strobe is the main thing I like as compared to my old one.

Also ordered a battery powered "flare" (SOS strobe) supposed to be visible to 10 miles and it comes with a daytime flag (should be in today). I also carry a new smoke flare and the most recently expired one. Definite attention getter there.

It came down to an extra $50 to get a text on the PLB that says they received the message and have located it/me, so got that anyway.

The IR strobe was the biggest selling point.  Will likely just replace the battery on this new one in the future.



My electronic signal flare came in yesterday - it is too bright to look at, does the SOS thing.  Not very big and runs on 3 C batteries.  Glad I got that.  It was like $90 as opposed to spending $30-$40 on flares every 3 or 4 years.

I fished with a buddy on his Cape Horn last Saturday. Five guys on board, all of us had a PLB. It surprised me that everyone was "carrying", but it shows people are using their head about safety. The boat has an EPIRB also.

Yup, 5 legal size red grouper, a dozen or so bee liners, and a couple of amlaco jacks. And of course a bunch of the very endangered and hard to find ARS. At least 30 of them, up to 33". Having a descending device on board makes it real easy to release fish without hurting them. We were prospecting for new spots and found some good ones. most of them about 50 miles out. 

I'm heading in that direction..saving more lunch money now.
But I did hook up the vhf to the chart plotter, saw it was getting position and time, and got a MMSI number now. I haven't finished putting info in radio and doing test call yet, I'll do that tomorrow.

PLB is next..
Flares taken care of.. I might do the battery flare/flag next time..
Towing is through insurance..now I don't know how sign and glide compares to towboat us or seatow..
But it's something..

Mine gets more use on land then water honestly. I pack it in my hunting backpack and also anytime I travel. I'm not about to be stuck cliffside in Costa Rica because the idiot tour guide rolled the land rover. Gives piece of mind globally for me.