Information Bulletin ISSUE 23 - FEBRUARY 2011 Register your Beacon It Might Save your Life! In August 2009, an Australian yachtsman on a solo With the phase-out of Cospas-Sarsat satellite alerting ocean voyage unexpectedly found himself in distress services at 121.5 MHz in 2009, 2010 was the first year when his yacht overturned off the coast of Australia. where the beacon population consisted solely of After assessing his situation, he activated his 406 MHz 406 MHz beacons, all with the potential to be regis- PLB to urgently summon assistance. Unfortunately, he tered. And yet, despite the importance of beacon regis- had not registered his beacon. tration, a consistent 30% of the global beacon popula- tion remains unregistered. Beacon owners need to verify Mike Barton, Chief of 1,000,000 the Australian Rescue 26% Coordination Centre NonNon registered registered population said “Unregistered bea- 900,000 cons really delay search RegisteredRegistered population population 241,770 800,000 action, therefore putting 30% the survivors at greater risk of not being rescued 700,000 in time. In this recent 29% 226,473 incident, the Australian 600,000 MCC received an unreg- 29% 500,000 176,133 istered, unlocated alert 28% The figure on top of each bar represents the percentage from the New Zealand 142,182 400,000 of the global beacon population28% that is not registered. GEOLUT at around mid- 32% 118,395 704,047 night. RCC Australia 35% 35% 106,990 300,000 108,391 109,132 was unable to immedi- 35% 527,978 ately respond, because 99,508 200,000 87,702 424,056 the PLB was not regis- 353,652 311,293 tered, therefore infor- 204,868 272,143 100,000 232,609 mation on the owner or 162,798 184,992 where they might be was unavailable. It was 0 nearly an hour later 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 before we received ini- tial location from the Global beacon population: registered versus non-registered beacon trends (2000-2009) LEOLUT and were able to start responding. The yachtsman was subsequently that their beacons are registered. Many beacon owners rescued by the local Volunteer Marine Rescue falsely believe that their beacon was registered at the Unit. The outcome could have been much worse but point of sale or installation; however, this is not the case. luck was on his side, this time.” Global Registration Statistics Each year, the Cospas-Sarsat Secretariat conducts a INSIDE THIS ISSUE: survey of beacon manufacturers to provide a count of Today’s 406 MHz Beacons 2 beacons produced annually. A global beacon population is estimated. This information, when combined with the People and Events 3 number of beacons registered in each country worldwide How Does the System 4 which is collected as part of the annual report by Ad- Work? / Participants POINTS OF INTEREST ministrations, gives an indication of the fraction of the global beacon population that is non-registered. Statistics on System Use 5 In 2009, Cospas-Sarsat Since 2000, unregistered beacons have consistently com- 2010 Notable Saves 6 alert data assisted in prised about 30% of the total beacon population (see 478 distress incidents figure above). What’s New ? / 8 in which 1,596 persons Cospas-Sarsat Operations were rescued. Strategic Performance Measure MEOSAR / 10 Beacon Population Trends As part of the Cospas-Sarsat strategic planning process, The 406 MHz beacon a series of performance measures were developed to Notes from 2010 Council 11 population reached track progress towards the Programme’s strategic goals Chair and Head of over 945,000 units at and objectives. Several measures relate directly to bea- Secretariat the end of 2009, more than double the popu- Contact Information 12 See REGISTRATION on page 2 lation in 2004. Page 2 Issue 23 REGISTRATION (continued from p.1) to obtain critical data about a beacon's owner, including Today’s 406 MHz Beacons: con registration, indicating the emergency contacts and other Smaller, importance to SAR authorities of information that allow a having properly registered search to begin even before a Better, More beacons. The table below final location of the activated Affordable shows one performance meas- beacon is determined. When ure, the percentage of detected a beacon is not registered, beacons reported by Cospas- there is no point of contact Since Cospas-Sarsat Sarsat Participants in 2009 on available to verify whether an approval of the first beacons with their own country emergency requiring response models of 406 MHz code that were registered, is even necessary. When a beacons in 1989, again showing that about 35% beacon is inadvertently acti- their design has of the global beacon popula- vated and is not registered, evolved signifi- tion remains unregistered. rescue personnel may be put cantly. Technologies at risk trying to find this bea- IBRD Registration con when a simple phone call allowing more com- could have determined it to be pact electronic packaging combined with the use Cospas-Sarsat maintains an of more efficient electrical components, particu- online International Beacon Reg- a non-emergency.” larly oscillators and batteries, have allowed a istration Database (IBRD) for He further stated “The regis- 406 MHz beacons. It is de- drastic reduction of the size and weight of bea- tration process is simple and cons. This trend is particularly noticeable for signed primarily for States who the few minutes it takes could do not maintain national beacon Personal Locator Beacons (PLBs), which are de- provide rescuers with vital signed for a less stringent environment than registries accessible on a 24x7 information that may make the basis, but is also used by some maritime or aviation beacons and for which re- difference between being duced size and weight are particularly desir- States to make their national rescued alive or not.” beacon registration data more able. A review of the PLBs approved by Co- readily accessible to SAR ser- spas-Sarsat since 1990 indicates that, on aver- vices. Since its inception in age, weight and size have been cut back by a 2006, more than 25,000 bea- factor of 3 to 4. This is a remarkable achieve- cons have been registered sup- ment considering that today’s PLBs are often porting 109 different national How to register your beacon more capable than earlier models and usually Administrations. SAR personnel offer added features such as GNSS positioning access the database an aver- There are 2 ways to register a beacon: capability. The technological changes also trans- age of 300 times a month. late into a reduction in cost with many PLB mod- 1. With the national authority els now sold for under US$ 500, resulting in a An objective documented in the associated with the country Cospas-Sarsat Strategic Plan is code in the beacon hexa- significant increase in customers interest in to- to “Encourage a wider use of decimal identification day’s smaller, better and more affordable 406 the IBRD to make beacon regis- (15 Hex ID); or MHz beacons. tration data readily available to SAR authorities.” To support 2. With the IBRD at this objective, Cospas-Sarsat is www.406registration.com if undertaking a redesign of the the country code of the IBRD, expected to be online by beacon is not associated April 2011, with an improved with a registration facility user interface and enhanced and the country has al- capabilities. lowed direct registration in the IBRD. Why register your beacon? A list of countries allowing di- When asked about the impor- rect registration by beacon tance of beacon registration to owners in the IBRD is available SAR operations, Mr. Dave Fuhr- on the Cospas-Sarsat website man of the US Air Force Rescue at www.cospas-sarsat.org. De- Coordination Centre said tailed contact information for “Proper registration is vital in national beacon registries is the early minutes of an emer- also available. gency. Rescue centers use the beacon registration databases Beacon Type % of registered beacons Total number of registered beacons 10,327 EPIRB 75% = ——— = 67% Total number of 15,504 ELT 60% detected beacons PLB 75% Percentage of detected beacons that were registered (2009) Page 3 Cospas-Sarsat People and Events Events Diary EWG-1/2011 Next Generation Beacon Requirements (Montreal, Canada) 31 January – 4 February 2011 South Central DDR (Abu Dhabi, UAE) 8 – 10 March 2011 EWG-2/2011 MEOSAR Proof-of-Concept (POC) / In-Orbit Validation (IOV) Phase (Brussels, Belgium) 16 – 18 March 2011 TG-1/2011 Preparation for a MEOSAR D&E Phase (Antalya, Turkey) 21 - 25 March 2011 Central DDR (Toulouse, France) 5 – 7 April 2011 46th Council Session - Closed Meeting EWG-1/2010 Meeting on the MEOSAR POC/IOV Phase in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (Moscow, Russia) March 2010 12 – 15 April 2011 NOAA Beacon Manufacturers’ Workshop (St. Petersburg, Florida, USA) New Finance & Administration Officer at the 20 May 2011 Cospas-Sarsat Secretariat 25th Joint Committee Meeting (Hong Kong, China) 13 – 21 June 2011 In July 2010, after 10 years with the 47th Council Session Programme, Anthony Boateng resigned (Montreal, Canada) as Finance and Administration Officer Closed Meeting at the Cospas-Sarsat Secretariat to 19 – 21 October 2011 Open Meeting return to Ghana where he now works 24 – 27 October 2011 as Director, Finance and Administra- tion, at the African Centre for Economic Western DDR (Miami, Florida, USA) Transformation (ACET). Anthony was 10 – 12 January 2012 replaced by Craig Aronoff. Craig is from Montreal and a Canadian char- South West Pacific DDR tered accountant. (Bali, Indonesia) February 2012 Welcome aboard, Craig! Farewell, Anthony! South Central DDR Meeting in Maspalomas, Spain March 2010 Page 4 Issue 23 How Does the Cospas-Sarsat System Work? The Cospas-Sarsat System provides distress alert and location information to search and rescue (SAR) services throughout the world for maritime, avia- tion and land users in distress.