ELT replacement advice?

I read some research awhile back from the NTSB, I believe, that reported less than half of the airplane crashes the transponders go off. If it wasn't mandatory I wouldn't have one in our 170B. I use a spot gen 1 attached to my parachute on the shoulder strap and looking at my traces it seldom misses a track, like once in several hundred tracks. Also Steve Fosset had two ELTs one was a wrist watch ELT that also failed.

Also Steve Fosset had two ELTs one was a wrist watch ELT that also failed.

I seem to recall from somewhere in the media that Steve was not wearing that particular ELT watch as quoted by his wife. Could be wrong.

XCSoar, Oudie and likely other soaring software offer methods to Bluetooth

position to an app on your phone which sends packets to a tracking website.


Cell coverage is often pretty good a few thousand feet up, even over areas

where there is no coverage on the ground.

At our club private owner flights go to Livetrack24. Position reports go
out
every 30 seconds or so.

On Thursday, January 5, 2017 at 1:00:07 PM UTC-8, George Haeh wrote:
XCSoar, Oudie and likely other soaring software offer methods to Bluetooth

position to an app on your phone which sends packets to a tracking website.


Cell coverage is often pretty good a few thousand feet up, even over areas

where there is no coverage on the ground.

At our club private owner flights go to Livetrack24. Position reports go
out
every 30 seconds or so.

Watching the Benalla Worlds on Livetrack24, the update rate when working is great but cell phone coverage is pretty poor in places.
Anything you install needs to be properly placed. Carbon cockpits are not friendly to radio signals from below.
Jim

The two act in a very complementary way. It's like asking, what should I have, safety belt or airbags?

Why "or"?

While my fuselage is carbon fiber, I haven't seen significant breaks in my
LT24
tracks.

That's with my phone in my shirt pocket.

You might not get the same cell reception with a phone in a belt holster
inside carbon fiber.

Fossett was not wearing the ELT watch and would have had to been alive to activate it. I have seen the photos of the crash, he hit extremely hard and would have died instantly.

There was a show reconstructing the accident with CGI, does anyone know which channel produced that show? I have tried to find it and could not, seems like it was, Discovery, History, Smithsonian or similar.


On Thursday, January 5, 2017 at 8:11:54 AM UTC-8, Duster wrote:
Also Steve Fosset had two ELTs one was a wrist watch ELT that also failed.

I seem to recall from somewhere in the media that Steve was not wearing that particular ELT watch as quoted by his wife. Could be wrong.