Share Your ELT/EPIRB Chasing Stories

Started by Pylon, March 11, 2005, 05:07:16 PM

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Майор Хаткевич

Wasn't there an issue a few years ago that some TVs/ Electronic home equipment in cities would emit the proper signals causing a search?

SarDragon

It still happens, but since the satellites aren't listening, and the signals were mostly carrier-only, we don't get to chase them very much any more.
Dave Bowles
Maj, CAP
AT1, USN Retired
50 Year Member
Mitchell Award (unnumbered)
C/WO, CAP, Ret

bosshawk

Dave: can't say how often it happens, but I had one last Saturday.  Was flying along the Sierra foothills in Northern CA, when I heard an ELT on 121.5.  That was around 0800 and I duly reported it to ATC. Around 1630 that same day, as I passed that same area, there was still an ELT going off.  Told ATC about it and they replied "roger, that one has been reported numerous times".  I guess that the battery would eventually give out.

BTW: there is a CAP Sq within a short driving distance from where the thing was sounding off.
Paul M. Reed
Col, USA(ret)
Former CAP Lt Col
Wilson #2777

SarDragon

These junk signals don't quite sound like regular ELT signals, and usually don't have any modulation at all. But the satellites would still pick them up, because they sensed the 121.5 carrier.

What you heard was likely a real unit that nobody decided to look for.
Dave Bowles
Maj, CAP
AT1, USN Retired
50 Year Member
Mitchell Award (unnumbered)
C/WO, CAP, Ret

a2capt

On one of my searches it turned out to be a VCR causing it, when the thing was pulled from the wall it was't making the L-Per go nuts.

Another.. the mainstream story:

From CNN.com (via the Wayback Machine)

A more comical slapstick look, from the comments and the venue, Slashdot.

Phil Hirons, Jr.

In the start of June 2012 RIWG got called to locate an unregistered 406 beacon. Apparently in Tiverton RI there is a facility that tests / sells emergency equipment and the offending beacon was one of 600, still in the packaging, in their warehouse. 

--edited for typo

a2capt

* If you edit within a couple minutes of posting, it does not show the timestamp of edit.

sarmed1

There are a few that stand out for me over the years;

Reading, PA:  Searched all of the likely areas in the county (the area I was in at the time was ringed by mountains, so signals reflected a lot of the time)  We finally narrowed down the signal down to a regular automotive salvage yard.  When we questioned them offhandedly about airplane parts, they informed us they infact just moved a large haul of old parts from the front of the yard to the back of the yard yesterday, and proceded to show us where they were.  Expecting a pile of misc parts there were actually 5 Shorts 360's that had been scrapped out of the local airport.  Just the fuselages, stacked 2 wide and 2/3 high.  We called the local company at the airport that flew them and asked where the ELT was, of course its in the rear cargo compartment under the tail...... after some carefull looking its not in the bottom 2; its the top one.  We climbed up and roped into the cargo compartment, removed the ELT and shut it  off.  Apparently someone had missed removing it when they stripped all of the avionics out, and when the front end loader stacked them up it was enough of a jarring to activate the beacon.

mk
Capt.  Mark "K12" Kleibscheidel

cpyahoo

Man... these just keep getting better!  These stories are great!

Stonewall

Sometime in the early to mid-90s in Washington DC (DCWG).  We're tracking a signal throughout the District and and narrow it down to a specific dock that has about 40 boats in slips.  It's roughtly 0200 and while we've got our Jetstreams pinging to the immediate area, as we approach the dock the signal actually gets weaker.

Hmmm...as we approach the boats, which have EPIRBs, why would the signal become weaker?

Out next thought is that a boat owner removed his EPIRB and it's in a car in a nearby parking lot, but again, as we leave the parking area we're sitting in, the signal weakens. 

Finally, sitting there, we notice that the building we're parked in front of is a USCG building.  As we approach the front doors the signal grows stronger.  BINGO!

We call the emergency number on the glass doors and a petty officer shows up 30 minutes later to help locate the signal.

It was in some sort of boater safety room.  A box of 12 brand new EPIRBS that had been openened, closed back up, and set aside, UPSIDE DOWN!  All 12 were going off.
Serving since 1987.

Danger

At our squadron, a guy was driving around and an old ELT was in his car, and went off driving around. Imagine trying to find a mobile ELT! And they got it too.
"Never take anything too seriously."

NIN

I was periperhally involved in a search for a moving ELT between Pontiac, Michigan & Ann Arbor, Michigan in the mid-1990s (they had ground teams on it, and an aircraft, but our involvement was to monitor what was going on and be ready to put our ground team into play in the event this search went on into the night).

The signal was in the vicinity of Pontiac Airport, and one of the ground teams was enroute to to PTK.  They stopped near the airport to do a DF sweep and got nothing.  Full-up ramp check, nada.  AFRCC calls with hits near Ann Arbor.  They do the same thing down there. Nothing.  Whoops, its between Ann Arbor & PTK.  Saddle back up, head that way.

This goes on for awhile, until somehow it was determined that the ELT was in a helicopter flying back and forth between a location near Ann Arbor and PTK.  The Dominos Pizza helicopter. 

No, they did not get free pizza out of the deal.

Darin Ninness, Col, CAP
I have no responsibilities whatsoever
I like to have Difficult Adult Conversations™
The contents of this post are Copyright © 2007-2024 by NIN. All rights are reserved. Specific permission is given to quote this post here on CAP-Talk only.

Stonewall

Another one I like to tell...and proves why having a radio watch is important (before cell phones were popular).

Squadron et up for 2 days of training out near Shenandoah Mountains and camped out near a high peak so we could maintain comms with the wing (no one had personal cell phones at the time).  After a long hard day of training, we bed down with a schedule for radio watch.  As we drift off, we are awakened by a cadet saying "there's a mission, there's a mission"!!!

Naturally, it couldn't be close by.  We were in western Virginia and got the call to head towards Silver Spring Maryland.

We're on the road in 30 minutes, a squadron van and a POV (Cherokee).  Long story short, we found it at a home in a residential neighborhood at about 0200. 

The guy bought something that looked cool at a garage sale for $5 earlier in the day and threw it in the back of his van.  It was a personal ELT.  He didn't know it was turned on and was excited that it worked. 
Serving since 1987.

NIN

We held a group or wing training exercise at a local "metropark" one year outside of Detroit.   A buddy of mine was the OIC and I took charge of the target team.

So we're discussing cool places to put the ELT and target, and I point out a small beach and parking area on the topo map. "How about I put the team at the back of the parking lot here, to the north?"  The OIC agrees it will be a great place.

We get to the area to setup and discover that the area to the back of the parking lot really isn't all that suitable. I make a command decision to move the target team to an area about 25-50 yards off to the side of the driveway into the parking lot, probably 100 yards or more south of where I had told the OIC I was going to put the target.   

(To put this in perspective:  from where the driveway joined the parking lot at the south end, the ELT would have originally been straight ahead about 350 ft at the north end of the parking lot.  Instead, we're about 25-50 yard to the east of the point where the driveway joined the parking lot. And we have a great overwatch position to observe the approach of the team from the driveway/parking lot, plus we're under some small power lines that would have created a hell of a lot of weird interference.)

We're lounging around, waiting for the GT to get their heads out and find the ELT, when finally a GT vehicle pulls in and stops at the juncture of the driveway and parking lot.  I'm thinking "We'll be found in the next 5-10 minutes" as I'm observing the team get out, setup the ELPER, etc, thru my binoculars.

My friend, the OIC, is with this ground team. Matter of fact, it looks like he's put himself in charge of this one. (there were 3-4 ground teams from around the group or wing at this exercise)

So the cadet with the DF does his sweeps, and I can see he's getting strong signal indications pointing to the east, toward where we have the ELT setup, not to the north, where I said I'd setup.

The OIC comes over and points to the north. Oh, wait a minute.  My friend is one of those "Take no prisoners, I need to show everybody how @##$% awesome I am all the time" kinds of guys.

I can imagine the conversation goes like this:

"But, sir, the signal is coming from this direction."

"There is no way that the signal is coming from that direction. Try DFing in this direction. "

So the kid makes some DF sweeps, and every time I see he's getting better signal from the east.

"You must be doing something wrong, cadet.  The signal has to be coming from THIS direction.."

The GT all troop off to the northern end of the parking lot at the direction of my friend, and I'm thinking "You know, thats kind of a bogus thing to do. You're the OIC of the activity, and we had a discussion about where the ELT was going to be placed, and now you're trying to lead the ground team to it not based on the evidence at hand, but on your prior knowledge that no other team has."

So after about 45 minutes, they come thrashing back thru the woods between the far end of the parking lot and our location, discover our crash scene and start their actions-on.

Later, the OIC pulls me aside and upbraids me for not putting the ELT where I said I was going to put it.

I asked him "Are you pissed because I moved it on my own authority based on the conditions present, or are you pissed  because it wasn't where you thought it was supposed to be and it made you look bad in front of the ground team?"

(as you can imagine, that question just made him more angry...)

Darin Ninness, Col, CAP
I have no responsibilities whatsoever
I like to have Difficult Adult Conversations™
The contents of this post are Copyright © 2007-2024 by NIN. All rights are reserved. Specific permission is given to quote this post here on CAP-Talk only.

JROB

It was a midnight callout report of an ELT going off at MEM. The 406 beacon was registered to a Northwest Airlines plane that was in a maintenance facility in California. The first thing we think is okay, this has to be wrong. We get to the airport at about 0130 we start the ELT sweep near the GPS coordinates provided which was a FedEx holding facility...nothing. So we push west to the terminal area and we get a signal coming from the FedEx ramp. We think well this is going to suck it's being shipped.  The signal takes us near the Air National Guard facility, which is not the best place to be at 0400 in the morning being that the duty sergeant is a bit cranky and the contract security guys are a bit jumpy. After explaining what an ELT is to a E-7, two E-3's, and three private security guards we are politely told that if a plane has crashed on the ramp and they didn't know about it, it would be easier to explain to the base commander why they didn't let us on versus why they let us on base. Did I mention this was a few days after Bin Laden was killed? Probably not the best time to roll up to a base wearing camouflage with teenagers who look like they just stepped off a PJ recruiting poster. Finally we end up near the postal facility at the airport, we get a very strong signal and then we see a FedEx plane takeoff and our signal starts to fade....perfect. So ends the story of the midnight hunt.
Maj. Jason Robinson
Squadron Commander, Desoto Composite Squadron
SER-MS-096

"If you are in trouble anywhere in the world, an airplane can fly over and drop flowers, but a helicopter can land and save your life"-Igor Sikorsky