I have seen nothing from AOPA or EAA which said that the FCC was going to outlaw 121.5MHz ELTs.[1] But the FAA has done just that(look at page 10 of this PDF), prohibiting the manufacture, import, sale or use of 121.5MHz ELTs. FAR 91.207 requires most airplanes to have ELTs installed. The FCC is doing this to force all airplanes to install 406MHz ELTs and because, after all, they're not the ones who have to pay for it.
There are something like 200,000+ airplanes and helicopters in the U.S. that have ELTs and I'll bet that 95% of them do not have the newer 406MHz ELTs installed. Those things are costly, a thousand dollars for the simplest ones (most are closer to two grand), and that does not include installation, which can run hundreds more.
Note also that there is one 121.5MHz emergency beacon still legal for use, and that is the Breitling watch. The reason for that has to be some degree of government fuckery.
[1]ELTs are emergency radio beacons that are supposed to go off after a crash, assuming that there wasn't a post-crash fire or that the impact wasn't bad enough to smash the ELT to bits. In most cases that I am aware of, the ELTs served to guide rescuers to the crash sites before the bodies had been fully consumed by carrion eaters.
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Dear Miss Fit:
I am left pondering the meaning, in the context of the rule, of the word "use". Does the presence of the 121.5 MHz device aboard my aircraft constitute "use", or does use commence only when the device is activated and transmits on the assigned frequency? I think I will choose the latter as my operational definition.
I have, for some time now, regarded the ancient 121.5 MHz device as a "mandated brick" that had a small effect on my W&B and none on my safety. Based on my mission profiles I concluded that there were better places for me to expend my equipment budget than the installation of a 406 MHz device. Now comes the FCC telling me that I may not "use" the brick.
OK, I shan't "use" it. At least, not intentionally.
Warmest regards,
Frank
Working as an ATC, I don't dismiss the little obnoxious brick.
Most aircraft that monitor 121.5 - such as airliners, military - are quick to report the pitiful sound of an ELT. Once we hear about it, we notify the authorities and any overlying En Route Center, while getting other aircraft in our airspace to tune up 121.5 and see if they're picking it up as well. The lower altitude the aircraft that's hearing it, the closer that aircraft is to the ELT (line of sight and all). It's a crude sort of triangulation, but it helps in pinpointing the site.
A Civil Air Patrol or law enforcement aircraft usually takes off next to home in on the signal.
Will they get there in time to save a pilot who's bleeding to death in a crumpled airplane? Who knows? But we are listening, and we are acting when we hear those little orange bricks go off.
Frank, I gather that if we crash, the FCC will then hunt us down for using a 121.5MHz ELT and then fine our dead asses.
WP, I listen as well to 121.5. Not often, I only have one decent radio, but I'll tune it in on cross-countries. Thing is, none of us FLIBs can tune into 406MHz.
Miss Fit:
I'm fine with that. Forgiveness, permission, etc.
Mr. Penguin:
I understand and appreciate the efforts that the rest of the community will expend to help, should they hear the brick squawking. My disregard of it is based on its sorry record of failure to activate in situations where activation should have occurred.
And, I thank you, as I do all controllers, for your work that keeps us as safe as we can be.
Regards,
Frank
FCC rule states in an emergency _any_ radio is legal to obtain aid.
The real question is since it's on 121.5 which is a standard FCC Aviation band frequency earmarked by FAA for emergency communication there is convoluted legality. Flight safety trumps all.
Oh and all of the 121.5 devices are also heard on 2f or 243mhz the military SAR/emergency frequency. Whats the status on that from the flyboys.
Besides general FCC practice is to send nasty letter asking why and stating the obvious with a 10 days response time. Insert favored reply as response. ;)
Banning manufacture, import and sale makes sense for migration. After all
a SHARC7 is likely to last many more years if not used.
I set the HT to 121.5 as backup and
to listen.
Eck!
Eck, as has been pointed out elsewhere, ELTs have to be tested as part of the annual. Would not the signal strength test be "operation"?
Testing an ELT is no different now that any other aircraft transmitter. If you measuring it's output using a "dummy load" and appropriate meter.
under those conditions the signal isn't heard except for local to the test bench.
Having a transmitter currently by FCC
rules is not use. Use if actually transmitting and radiating a signal.
Bottom line is that FCC conflicts with their own rules in this one and it's been part of the FAA <-> FCC dual on who is in control of all things flying.
FAA says you have to have one and it must work or your restricted. No wiggle room there. They have not mandated or approved an EPIRB as replacement. To be on board they must pass the generic TSO for radios and the like but, like many devices
in small planes (especially VFR) it's optional.
I do not know if the rules require that it actually be enabled. Mine has an OFF, Armed and ON switch and off means no operation under and condition (no shock switch).
Further, it's not rule yet when proposed it has to go to a comments
and responses process NPRM (Notice of Proposed Rule Making) and period.
Actually the ball from my view is in the court of FAA to also participate in an upgrade plan like 760 channel
(coms radio).
For small plane owners it's another
kick in the wallet.
Are ELTs required on sport planes?
Eck!
The deal is that 406Mhz devices have a full SARSAT constellation capable of triangulating upon them, due to the fact that 406Mhz is also the frequency used by EPLB's and the seagoing equivalent, EPIRB's. There have been numerous crashes here in the West where nobody picked up the 121.5Mhz ELT signals until after the batteries died, meaning they were basically useless even for finding the wreckage and collecting the bodies. I realize that Back East this might seem odd, but remember, we have these things called *mountains* out here (and unlike Back East, we do *not* have radio and television towers on top of every mountain, gasp!), and if something crashes in the radio shadow of a mountain, it might as well not exist as far as anything not in orbit is concerned.
So there are sound technical reasons to move to 406Mhz devices and away from 121.5Mhz devices, but the bureaucratic screwups that you're describing make me shake my head in dismay, because clearly that's gong to hinder the migration to the 406Mhz devices significantly. While Back East that might not be a big deal, here in the West migrating to 406Mhz devices might help find these planes that get found months or years later much more quickly, thanks to SARSAT. I recall that during the search for Steve Fossett, we found several years-old crash sites that had never been found before... and which 121.5Mhz ELT's would have been no help finding, because they were in radio shadow as far as anything terrestrial was concerned.
- Badtux the Radio Penguin
121.5 MHz EPIRB's were phased out for marine use back in early 2007, forcing every bluewater ship or boat to replace theirs with a 406 MHz model. The satellites that used to monitor were disabled 18 months ago.
This is not about cost, but rather about a grab for desirable radio spectrum.
Mr Howell, Who is grabbing what spectrum? That comment makes zero sense and has nothing to support it.
No one grabbed spectrum if anything there were interlopers to the assigned air safety use that had
been tolerated.
It did force the non-aviation community off 121.5 (guard) as a common safety related frequency.
All the the frequencies in the R/O are aircraft band, they remain aircraft band application.
For those that only focused on the ELT issue.. Collins is likely behind the 8.33khz splitting for more channels. If you think 406 ELTs are stinking expensive wait till your navcoms will have to upgrade and that is on a good day a 2-3000 per bit of pain. I suspect the 8.33khz spit will be very expensive. Personally and engineering wise thats a weird split as the spacing is narrow for AM. Now 760 channels (last split) becomes 2280? Aircraft safety depends on seeing and hearing the other guy and I can't see how thousands of channels helps that.
The problem remains, where is the FAA
on all this? The whole document is about and relevant to flight safety
and last I heard that was FAA/NTSBs
ball of wax.
Eck!
Eck, I was about to ask the same question about 121.5MHz.
It was my understanding/hallucination that it's being reallocated to TDMA applications, which usually means cell phones. I can't source that fact, though, other than my own cynical observation that spectrum (as (mis-)governed today--a rant unto itself) is too precious to let sit unallocated for long. Hopefully this is just a movement to improved use of 121.5.
I *do* know that 121.5 Mhz EPIRB's for marine use have been illegal to manufacture for a few years now (2007?) and that the satellites no longer monitor for them, only the 406Mhz, which has a lot of other good features such as higher transmission power, better coverage, registration & geo-location capabilities (with a GPS-enabled EPIRB), etc.
My apologies for the bad data.
Chandler, I can assure you 100% that 121.5Mhz is not being assigned to the cell phone bands. 121.5Mhz is in the middle of the public safety bands. If it *is* reassigned to something that uses TDMA, it will be to some public safety purpose such as digital aircraft radio trunking or something of that sort.
For that matter, 121.5Mhz isn't even completely unused for its current purposes under FCC regs. PLB's have a short-range 100 milliwatt beacon on 121.5Mhz to allow ground-based crews to do final triangulation on the rough triangulation done by satellites to the 406Mhz signals.
The biggest difference between the 406Mhz signal and the 121.5Mhz signal is that the 406Mhz signal is a digital signal that carries identifying information (the serial number of the PLB or EPIRB which should be registered with your country's SARSAT registrar) as well as GPS position information if available, while 121.5Mhz is anonymous and cannot carry position information. Furthermore, because the size of the antenna required is inversely proportional to the frequency (that is, the higher the frequency, the smaller the antenna), more satellites can be equipped with a 406Mhz antenna, allowing a larger and more robust SARSAT constellation than was possible with 121.5Mhz, where only a few large satellites were capable of monitoring the frequency. And while it was rare for tropospheric conditions to reflect 121.5Mhz such that it can't get to orbit, it is possible, while it's not possible for 406Mhz. And finally, because 406Mhz is not in the middle of the public safety band, you can transmit more power on 406Mhz without interfering with other public safety band users, allowing 406Mhz EPLB's and EPIRB's to more easily penetrate forest cover and other obstacles and reach orbit.
In short, there are numerous technical reasons why EPIRB's and EPLB's have been moved to 406Mhz, none of which have anything to do with a desire to allocate 121.5Mhz out of the public safety band. I regularly get ARRL updates on FCC actions regarding frequency allocations, and have heard nothing about any attempt to hijack any of the public safety band for commercial purposes, most of the action is at higher frequencies more suited for digital communications. So it goes.
- Badtux the Ham Penguin
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