Buying an ELB/PLB from the USA

[Guest Pabloako]

Ok.... This may be a really silly question.....

 

I have been looking at buying an ELB from the USA, because for one of the small "Fast Find" makes you are looking at around A$640 here, however several shops in the USA is selling them for around US$309 (A$370) for the exact same thing. If I buy one from the USA, does anyone know if I will have problems registering / using it in Australia?

 

(This reminds me of the time I was in Brisbane and saw an American tourist buying a small FM radio. He asked the shop assistant if it would pick up American radio stations when he got back home, or would he only be able to listen to Australian stations.)

 

 

[Guest Graham Lea]

Check with a boating shop (I say boating because they are open Sundays normally). Or the Australian Maritime people .. Whitworths have links if I recall....

 

 

[hihosland]

Before buying a USA model talk to the Search and Rescue people and verify that they will register it here.

 

Da vidh

 

 

[Guest basscheffers]

(This reminds me of the time I was in Brisbane and saw an American tourist buying a small FM radio. He asked the shop assistant if it would pick up American radio stations when he got back home, or would he only be able to listen to Australian stations.)

Not quite a stupid as it sounds! First of all, he may well have meant "only usable in Australia."

Secondly, unless the AM side of things can switch to 10KHz tuning as used in the US, that won't work. And you'll be able to tune into FM, but because the use a different pre-emphasis* using it in the US will make it sound not so good.

 

* Higher audio frequencies are amplified at the transmitter and then reduced beck to normal level in the receiver to cut down on noise. Much like Dolby for audio cassettes, though that uses some more tricks also.

 

 

[Guest Pabloako]

Well there you go... American tourist 1, Pabloako 0

 

On the buying of PLB from the USA or other countries, I have found...

 

Australian residents who buy a distress beacon elsewhere must have the beacon recoded with the Australian country code by a local agent and have it registered with AMSA.

 

 

 

http://beacons.amsa.gov.au/documents/brochure.pdf

 

 

 

 

 

Canadian Class 2 PLBs

 

Canada has now amended their Standards to allow a Class 2 PLB that is not required to float. This beacon does not meet the Australian Standard and will not be registered in Australia.

 

United States Coded PLBs

 

We are aware that the United States requires all PLBs for use in the US to transmit the letter "P" in Morse over the homing frequency of 121.5 MHz. This is not permitted under Australian Standards nor by the ACMA's miscellaneous Devices Class Licence that references these Standards and therefore these distress beacons should not be used in Australia. Any 406 MHz beacon registered with AMSA is required to be coded with an Australian country code. You may have difficulty recoding a 406 MHz beacon produced for the US market. There may be beacons manufactured to other national standards that are not compatible with Australian standards. You should make sure that any beacon you purchase will comply with the Australian requirements.

 

http://beacons.amsa.gov.au/beacon-models.html

 

 

[flie43]

Gidday Pabloako,

 

The ELB thing-Our club bought 20 off these for club members locally after looking at the idea of buying them in the states. Definately speak to AMSA and maybe an elb company here, but the story we got was the Hex code had to be changed here and set to OZ. They would do it but charged a heap.

 

Terry

 

 

[Guest Maj Millard]

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