Thursday, Sep 14, 2017 at 08:14
IMHO a PLB is much better than a EPIRB when used for 4wding and camping for a number of very practical reasons. I would advise against buying an EPIRB verses a PLB for 4wding.
Why?
Obviously the size of a PLB makes sense. But also the shape. An EPIRB is designed to float upright in water, and use the water as a ground plane. If you use an EPIRB on land you don't get that ground plane, and they aren't stable when placed upright, if it tips over it won't work reliably or at all.
Both are at 406Mhz, this has no problem penetrating cloud. They are both 5W. The space station uses a 5w 400 mhz radio for Amateur contact all the time. 5w is tons under any weather conditions, especially as the transmissions are repeated every 5 - 10 mins.
Both have the same accuracy ( 100m with a GPS)
Also a PLB is registered to a person - you can add trip and vehicle details. An EPIRB must be registered to a vessel.
An EPIRB will
beacon for a minimum of 48 hours vs 24 for a PLB. but that is really only of importance at sea.
Some EPIRBS won't activate, even manually unless they get wet. You need to watch that. Most newer ones are both though.
All PLB's are waterproof to several meters ( 10 - 15 ) and most float.
Most of all, a PLB can, and should be located somewhere in the vehicle that everyone knows, and is accessible in the event of an accident or rollover from all the passenger seats. This is generally not possible with a full sized EPIRB. I have a
HF radio and Sat phone. I also have a PLB pretty much for this reason. It may be too hard to make a HF or Sat phone call after an accident. With the PLB, just grab it, activate it and throw it out the window if possible. You could not do that with an EPIRB, it would land horizontally and not work, and that's if you could even get to it or find it.
FollowupID:
884288