Isle Royale Forums

Amazing response time IMO all things considered.

Initially I assumed she must have been a paddler or boater but she broke her leg hiking. Here is some additional information released by the U.S. Coast Guard.

http://www.uscgnews.com/go/doc/4007/222 ... ional-Park

GPS enabled Personal Locating Beacons that can transmit your GPS location to a satellite system have been getting less expensive.

What an unfortunate incident,but with an impresive response .....glad she recieved help so quickly!

I had wondered if PLB's would work on the island......guess now we all know!

I hope for the best for this lady. It has to be a scary thing to be hurt and so isolated.

PLBs work anywhere in the world. They are simple to use and can be a life-saver. It's a small up-front investment ($100) and a yearly subscription fee ($100).

fonixmunkee wrote:I hope for the best for this lady. It has to be a scary thing to be hurt and so isolated.

PLBs work anywhere in the world. They are simple to use and can be a life-saver. It's a small up-front investment ($100) and a yearly subscription fee ($100).

You are confusing them with commercial GPS trackers. GPS trackers allow for a subscription service to "continuously" track you and also allow short messaging. They could help save your life but it would require that someone on the other end to be monitoring your messaging when you needed help.

PLBs (Personal Locating Beacons) for land use and EPIRBs (Emergency Position Indicating Beacons) for marine use are registered with an NOAA government system. They use a reserved spectrum at 406 MHz to send what is essentially a 911 call with your identity and approximate or exact position (depending upon GPS). NOAA monitors these signals 24/7 with no subscription fees. They will first call the registered number hoping to discover a false alarm. If no one answers or your family answers with "yes, he's in that general area", the cavalry will be dispatched. The cheapest one I've seen is about $180 but most of the name brands start at between $250 and $350. I don't see any operational difference between PLBs and category II EPIRBs. Both require manual activation. Category I EPIRBS automatically activate in water and self release from mount when submerged. After activation there is a second transmitter at 121.5 MHz that can be used for local searchers to home in on you with radio direction finders.

Here is the NOAA website for them:
http://www.sarsat.noaa.gov/emerbcns.html

Midwest Ed wrote: You are confusing them with commercial GPS trackers. GPS trackers allow for a subscription service to "continuously" track you and also allow short messaging. They could help save your life but it would require that someone on the other end to be monitoring your messaging when you needed help.

Thanks for the clarification! I was talking about these: http://www.findmespot.com

tHAT CHOPPER FLEW RIGHT OVER ARE HEADS . LATER FOUND OUT ABOUT THE BROKEN LEG