Breitling Emergency - Top Gear now
Discussion
Always a lot of mis-information when threads about the Emergency come out. I've written about how the watch works before.
The new model of the watch works as an alert. I.e. you pull the distress signal and as you saw on top-gear, the signal gets picked up immediately and the rescue services are deployed.
The older 121.5Mhz is not ACTIVELY monitored. I.e. I can pull the distress signal and nothing will happen. Basically, someone needs to inform the emergency services that you're missing, and only then will they look for the signal, a little bit like the entry level tracker product for vehicles. Car gets stolen, it's only when someone reports the car stolen that the police will go looking for it. 121.5 is monitored, but it's reactive, not proactive.
Also, Breitling will replace the watch FoC is the beacon was deployed for any legitimate emergency, not just aeronautical. Originally it was just for pilots, but Breitling changed their policy a while ago, and as part of the launch of the new watch you can find videos covering air land and sea rescue.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeqAdzGw1l4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkMYAy7XIys
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wob1imRxmJE
Change of ownership is a piece of cake, simple letter confirming new owner to Breitling to update their records, all done. No official dealership involvement, nothing.
The new model of the watch works as an alert. I.e. you pull the distress signal and as you saw on top-gear, the signal gets picked up immediately and the rescue services are deployed.
The older 121.5Mhz is not ACTIVELY monitored. I.e. I can pull the distress signal and nothing will happen. Basically, someone needs to inform the emergency services that you're missing, and only then will they look for the signal, a little bit like the entry level tracker product for vehicles. Car gets stolen, it's only when someone reports the car stolen that the police will go looking for it. 121.5 is monitored, but it's reactive, not proactive.
Also, Breitling will replace the watch FoC is the beacon was deployed for any legitimate emergency, not just aeronautical. Originally it was just for pilots, but Breitling changed their policy a while ago, and as part of the launch of the new watch you can find videos covering air land and sea rescue.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeqAdzGw1l4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkMYAy7XIys
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wob1imRxmJE
Change of ownership is a piece of cake, simple letter confirming new owner to Breitling to update their records, all done. No official dealership involvement, nothing.
Fas1975 said:
The older 121.5Mhz is not ACTIVELY monitored. I.e. I can pull the distress signal and nothing will happen. Basically, someone needs to inform the emergency services that you're missing, and only then will they look for the signal, a little bit like the entry level tracker product for vehicles. Car gets stolen, it's only when someone reports the car stolen that the police will go looking for it. 121.5 is monitored, but it's reactive, not proactive.
Unless something drastic has happened in the last couple of years, the 121.5/243 frequencies are monitored; there is a network of civilian and military direction finders that are co-ordinated at Swanwick (?). Any receipt of an emergency transmission is picked up, routed to the centre and triangulated to work out the position of the beacon. Of course, this is for the UK only; so the sum total of traffic will be distress calls from a/c or absolute chisellers who have bought the watch without any intention of ever leaving the country; just setting it off to see what happens.
GC8 said:
Something drastic HAS happened!
They were monitored by satellite. Now they are not.
A 121.5MHz Breitling is virtually useless.
Please explain how 121.5 from a watch avoids keying the receivers used in the aforementioned DF network, alerting the authorities.They were monitored by satellite. Now they are not.
A 121.5MHz Breitling is virtually useless.
In fact, I'm interested enough to look into this myself. I'll be back.
http://nats.aero/blog/2014/08/distress-diversion/
This is what I was getting at, as I worked with the DF kit for a few years back along. Having looked for ground based beacon transmitters, it appears pilots can buy one for when they have ploughed in. I can only presume that the watch would key the DF receivers in the same way the handheld would.
This is what I was getting at, as I worked with the DF kit for a few years back along. Having looked for ground based beacon transmitters, it appears pilots can buy one for when they have ploughed in. I can only presume that the watch would key the DF receivers in the same way the handheld would.
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