WA Radio Scanner Users' Group

R65 & R471 looking for an EPIRB near Rotto

Edit: Now focusing in towards Garden Is.

Edit: Now Mandurah

Edit: Now lat/long coordinates I didn't have a pencil ready.

Edit: Losing R471's signal. I think he said it's land mobile in the Mandurah suburbs?

Edit: Nope, last coords put it off Shoalwater about 30km

hey robbage,

I have heard some stuff in the media about a 'new' EPIRB frequency, do you happen to know what it is?

I believe the old one was somewhere in the mid VHF band (140-160mhz) but the new one is something around 300mhz? I would be interested to just plug yet another frequency into my scanner.

cheers
bonez

Ummm 121.5 and 243 MHz (from memory) have been around for yonkers. We had both receivers in the Pearce tower back in 1980. I think there's a UHF freq now, but not sure what it is. I'm pretty sure I saw it when I googled EPIRB a few weeks ago.
I wonder if it's double the freq again like 243 is

Apparently the new ones are 406mhz and that the old frequencies will be ignored from Feb 1 this year.

http://beacons.amsa.gov.au/

meg wrote:Apparently the new ones are 406mhz and that the old frequencies will be ignored from Feb 1 this year.

http://beacons.amsa.gov.au/

Thanks meg. Not sure what the deal is with 243 MHz. Might be military only? All I remember is we had to isolate the receivers of both freqs completely from the rack before fooling with them otherwise all hell would erupt.

robbage wrote:Not sure what the deal is with 243 MHz. Might be military only?

Seems that's the case in the US at least, here also perhaps?

Did anybody hear the results of the search? Dinner interrupted me

Another Epirb search underway off Bunbury ATM. 1 Nm off Mangles. Police have beacons operating off the beach hoping they will acknowledge with a flare to guide Bunbury Sea Rescue boat on route. 243 mhz second harmonic of 121.5 and a weaker signal. Usually used when searchers get closer to the scene

Large Bell 4xx orbiting offshore Bunbury at altitude 2337

Nick wrote:Another Epirb search underway off Bunbury ATM. 1 Nm off Mangles. Police have beacons operating off the beach hoping they will acknowledge with a flare to guide Bunbury Sea Rescue boat on route. 243 mhz second harmonic of 121.5 and a weaker signal. Usually used when searchers get closer to the scene

Rescue 65 has been flying over the ocean in the search area. It just flew over my house and appears to be flying around CBD and coastline. It's rather noisy when flying slow and low. Especially in the dead of night. At least thats what the Police said was on the way to search.

REMINDER: The old 121.5 mHz Network is being shut of tommorow.
Only the digital 406 will be monitored. Get your EPIRB NOW, cause there aren't any in the middle of the desert/ocean/wherever you stop

spartacus wrote:REMINDER: The old 121.5 mHz Network is being shut of tommorow.
Only the digital 406 will be monitored. Get your EPIRB NOW, cause there aren't any in the middle of the desert/ocean/wherever you stop

There aren't any anywhere if you believe the TV news. Shortage. Can't be bought. EVERYBODY PANIC

apparantly these new ones, transmitt the gps location and the serial number of it upon registering the becon to the austrlaian marintime authority, they know who you are and weather its a airplane or 4wd or boat ect. the beacon tranmits this in a quarter of a second upon turning it on and transmitts it every 50 seconds at 5 watts.

The old systen just used to transmitt an annonymus siren tone at 0.1 watts on 121.25 i think. as you can see rescue 65 had a bit of troulbe locating this epirb, with the new system , the epirb tells them exactly where it is, as soon as you turn on these new beacons, the australian marintime authority knows where you are. they have more satelite coverage, like, everywhere now instead of limit of 200 miles off shore.
They will be usefull to the acma now since, children steal beacons off boats, set them off and throw them in the bush just to annoy them. they wont have to spend hours fox hunting since they have the gps location.

Even thou 121.5 may not be offically monitored - the ebribs that are out there (older style) will have still some coverage and being monitored - as the airliners typically monitor 121.5 (Guard).

There are many ways in which the old 121.5 beacons could be tracked.

Typically - an airliner would notice the transmission on 121.5 and notify ATC and then ATC would get other aircraft to monitor guard and advise if anything heard - this would generate an area of where the beacon would be able to be heard - then aircraft flying lower would be asked to listen out and - as they are flying lower - they would be able to narrow down the search area. The final segment would be to get a SAR aircraft out and home the beacon - using either a homing device or be searching using a search pattern and then track it via the VHF radio - and then as the beacon gets closer - the SAR aircraft would de-tune its own radio to further narrow down the search area - and provide these details (LAT/LONG) to ATC and they would get ground based persons to conduct the ground search.

As you can see - the 406 EPRIBS will greatly assist in narrowing down the search area right away - but for those that still have the older style beacons - there are still many devices out there that still monitor 121.5 - and this will be the case for many years to come (but AMSA want people to get the 406 beacons for greater accuracy and also because it will speed up the search and rescue for you - if you are needing it - its in your best interests)

PS: Typically here in Australia - 243 was mainly monitored by the millitary and some specific SAR aircraft - but for 99.99% of the aircraft flying around the skies - they dont have the facility to monitor 243 - only 121.5

In reference to this, spotted this story on Perthnow
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0 ... 61,00.html