Thread: PLB - Recomendations

Good point CooeeBay about the 20 yr life for the beacon and 10 yrs for the battery but your missing the aim here on what my point was. . You managed to produce a 10 year battery life quite a while back but competitors failed to match your guarantee? So as a consumer, appears the shorter battery life on other beacons with todays technology - someone is lagging behind or bullshitting the public to gain a quicker turnover of replacement PLB/battery replacement? Very unfortunate that your company closed down. I had many mates buy from you for the just that - longer battery life of the beacon. Just saying..

@Hunteast ... It wasn't my business. I'm just one of the many retailers who cannot sell the KTi PLB anymore. And I do hear what you are getting at about the battery life of many of the brands.

Hopefully the new owner Jotron in Europe will continue with that battery duration when they do release a newer model...

Originally Posted by Hunteast

Good point CooeeBay about the 20 yr life for the beacon and 10 yrs for the battery but your missing the aim here on what my point was. . You managed to produce a 10 year battery life quite a while back but competitors failed to match your guarantee? So as a consumer, appears the shorter battery life on other beacons with todays technology - someone is lagging behind or bullshitting the public to gain a quicker turnover of replacement PLB/battery replacement? Very unfortunate that your company closed down. I had many mates buy from you for the just that - longer battery life of the beacon. Just saying..

Originally Posted by bunji

watching it now... 31 minutes of it.

@CooeeBay Good to see you still around & hope all is going OK over there had our Garmin inReach Explorer save us from a bad few days last year ,when we are hunting in the Alps down here ,l get the missus to update weather reports etc from various sources & keep us updated & l notify of any position changes from our end ,we had a isolated gale front coming at us, she updated us on & got in touch with the Heli mob who had not picked it up yet ,they actually headed in & got another campo out first as they were not as well prepared & we got out at the last minute with a hairy trip out .

Are there any advances /new & improved models in the Inreach/spot etc type units or any you recommend over others ?

Also did you see the interview on YT with the Bloke who got stuck in the camper van in the Simpson Desert ,l will chase it up for you if you want , it would interest you in particular. Still take the PLB from the group- buy out on every trip

@CooeeBay Yep that's it bloody interesting ,me & the missus did the same trip in our Mitzi 4x4 Camper in 2006 & me & 6 mates rode across it in 09 ,we had my Sat phone & boat Epirb back then &cops at either end were notified of expected arrival times ,the Outback Cops were terrific blokes on both trips & appreciated being given the heads up .

Garmin have brought out new models of GPS with InReach built in which is good news as they now run Garmin maps and not the old Delorne maps that the original InReaces were saddled with. New models are also touch screen.

Just be careful when you buy one that the stock is fresh - the expiry date of the battery is from manufacturing, mate bought one that was already 18 months old which for something with a 5 or 7 year life is a fair chunk of the lifespan.