Ahoy,I looking at buying plb as its a requirement for racing here of Freo .any brands better than others?is it ok to buy a used one?best place to get one near Freo ?any answer to above questions would be great.cheers
Australia has pretty good standards so any of the brands you can purchase in a retail store should do the job for you.
Some are quite small and will fit in the pocket of your life preserver.
The better ones also incorporate a built in GPS. Since the battery life of most PLB's is considerably shorter than the EPIRB you carry on board the inbuilt GPS will get you located a lot quicker as it narrows down the search grid considerably.
Another thing to look out for is whether the battery can be replaced or not. Some are "throw away units" after the use by date and that makes them a more expensive proposition in the long run.
Mine are throw away units with my view being that perhaps there will be better technology in the units by the time I have to dispose of them and I can replace them with updated ones.
Depending on where you shop you might expect to pay $300 to $350 for a fairly decent GPS enabled PLB. Thats where I live, could be a bit cheaper elsewhere.
Hello Chewa, I brought one of these ACR's recently. My previous PLB was a GME which is physically larger. The GME had reached it's used by date and when I got on to GME about replacing the battery, the cost was nearly that same as buying a new one. So I thought I might as well buy a new one and ended up with the ACR. The ACR cost about $50 more but came with a few extras from Whitworths. The smaller frame size was probably the determining factor.
I have the Kannad SafeLink SOLO PLB and am very happy with it. It has built-in GPS, SOS LED flashing light and is super compact. It's so compact in fact, that I keep it permanently tucked inside by auto-inflating PFD.
