Cruising Sailors Forum Archive

EPIRB question ... my ACR #406 battery is expired, why ...

... should I spend $320 to get a new battery for this 7 year old unit, rather than buy a new PLB from ACR or McMurdo ?
I do also have a FastFind from McMurdo, I have this in a floating Pelican box, that I can attach to my PFD.
The ACR PLB floats ... and like the FastFind I can take it backpacking in the summer, I can put it in my pocket.
As far as I can tell the only advantage of the larger EPIRB is that is will signal automatically, so if the boat goes down, it goes off. Whereas the PLB needs to be manually activated.
It appears they send the same signal, same strength, for about the same amount of time.
What's the reason to have the larger EPIRB ?
Thanks, cheers, John

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