In article ,
T o d d P a t t i s t wrote:

1) The installed ELT has more power and a better antenna.

Unless the coax is severed or the fragile battery box is broken.

2) The installed ELT has a button on the panel to turn it on
quickly before landing. I'll bet hitting a button mounted
at a fixed location can be done faster than finding a button
on a portable.

Tightly belted in, I couldn't reach anything on the panel in the
PW-5. Arms were too short, even with lots of cushions. The
button on the EPIRB was easy to find and switch on.

3) The installed ELT has the "failsafe" of crash activation.

Not reliable, and the crash may destroy it. Not likely
for the EPIRB. It's been tested to 20Gs and drop tested
on cement at it's terminal velocity.

4) The installed ELT can be carried portably after landing
and will transmit voice on 121.5.

Yep. So does my handheld radio and my cell phone.
And I don't even have to search for and install a whip antenna
after disconnecting the coax behind my head. If I'm bleeding
out of my femur and conscious, I'm probably going to
go with the cell phone in my jacket or the handheld radio.
Probably easier to reach.

But then again, I've never even flown a sailplane with an installed
ELT. So this is speculation on my part.

Downside: I would have paid over $8,000 to install even the
cheapest ELT in each of the 20 sailplanes I've flown in the past
2 years. If I owned my own sailplane, that would be different.
If the contest organizers want to restrict entrants to
those who own their own sailplanes, then that is another matter.
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Mark J. Boyd