Our personal locator beacons campaign is supported by:
Legalising personal locator beacons for land use in Great Britain
Like a lot of people I go exploring the countryside, very often on my own on horseback and in May 2007 I was completing a long ride with a friend and fell off the horse and broke my leg. I was lucky that I wasn’t alone and also that we had mobile phone reception.
Search and rescue Framework for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland 2002
Poor reception in mountains
Among the mountains mobile reception is quite often un-obtainable and this impairs any prompt rescue an injured outdoor pursuiter will receive. I learned of Personal Locator Beacons from a member of Equine Ramblers UK who lives in Australia where they have been legal for use on land since 2003. The same goes for the United States of America.
On investigation I found that we could purchase them in Great Britain but could only legally use them for marine purposes, for example at sea or on land locked water and rivers. The unit has to be registered with the PLB registry and licensed for use with OFCOM. At present if you use one on land you can have the unit confiscated, be fined and even imprisoned for unlicensed use of a transmitter. My Australian friend cannot use hers when she comes to the UK.
What are personal locator beacons?
For those who don’t know what they do…. they are about the size of a mobile phone and have a button, when pressed, that sends a GPS signal (in this country) via satellite to the coastguard. The coastguard know by this signal the exact location of the emergency and will send the emergency service straight out to it.
We want to legalise the use of PLB’s on land and help the Search and Rescue (SAR) save lives and money by finding their emergencies quicker, taking the Search out of Rescue. The misuse of PLB’s will not happen due to the cost of the unit and continuing registration of PLB’s. The penalty for misuse through the licensing would be the same as for illegal use.
This January (2007) PLB’s were legalised for use in recreational and sporting aircraft 10 minutes plus from land indicating a relaxation of these archaic rules.
Background Information on Locator Beacons
From Peter Dymond (Chief Coastguard)
Personal Locator Beacons (PLB’s) and similarly, Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacons (EPIRB’s) used for maritime distress alerting, and Emergency Locator Transmitters (ELT’s) used for aeronautical distress alerting are radio transmitting devices which operate in the 406 MHz band for sending distress alert signals to Cospas-Sarsat satellites. The satellites relay the signals to a Ground Station and then on to the Mission Control Centre where the signal is processed for onward transmission to the Rescue Co-ordination Centre who will activate and then co-ordinate the appropriate SAR response.
The processing of the beacon signal at the Mission Control Centre determines the identity of the Beacon ie maritime or air, whom it belongs to and the location of the beacon the latter being the most important item of information. Location is determined in two ways ie if the Beacon is fitted with GPS then the position from the GPS is included in the distress alert signal or if no GPS, then the position is determined by the Doppler techniques which is complex but in simple terms is about the movement of the satellite(s) (which are polar orbiting) in relation to the stationary beacon. Many Beacons also transmit a homing signal which help eg SAR helicopters, to home in on the beacon when approaching the position given by the Rescue Co-ordination Centre.
Air Ambulance statistics supplied by Shropshire and West Midlands
MISSIONS COMPLETED BY COUNTY
24th May 1991 – 31st August 2007
West Midlands 3496
Staffordshire 4673
Herefordshire &Worcestershire 5139
Shropshire 2815
Warwickshire 1241
Powys 498
Gloucestershire 3258
East Midlands 373
Other Services 95
Total Incidents 24952
These figures do not cover the Mountain rescue where air ambulance was not required or couldn’t be used
Personal Locator Beacons