Breitling Emergency - Top Gear now

[Martin_M]

Enjoy

[SickFish]

I spotted that too.... I thought you could only activate the transmitter in an "aeronautical" type ememergency (???)

[civicduty]

I'm sure Breitling are capable of changing the frequency the watch broadcasts on to something unique.

[ellroy]

If so they set it to buffoon.

[CAPP0]

I was naively hoping that we'd actually see how Breitling coordinate a response!

[sad61t]

I watched it and wondered what the film crew were using. Really hoped at the end (when both Duck and Dandy had failed) the 'We actually got rescued by...' would show a Landie.

[mph1977]

it's a 406 / 121.5 EPIRB in a watch , Breitling have nothing to do with you getting rescued

[GC8]

Its small, but bigger and better costs £300-£400 and lasts for days.

[traffman]

Ive heard it's a royal pain in the ass if you sell your Emergency onto another person , the dealer has to faff about with a lot of faffing?

Correct me if i'm way off mark.

[GC8]

406MHz registration is free, but that doesn't mean that Breitling don't make a meal of it.

The older/redundant/useless 121.5MHz types were anonymous.

[toohuge]

traffman said:

Ive heard it's a royal pain in the ass if you sell your Emergency onto another person , the dealer has to faff about with a lot of faffing?

Correct me if i'm way off mark.

Not really a massive faff. You just need to complete a change of ownership form at an AD and send the paperwork off.

It's just to ensure that you are not charged for non-emergency call outs.

[theblackbaron]

Even lesser of a faff. Breitling UK will send you the paperwork. No need to go to AD.

[mrfunex]

GC8 said:

406MHz registration is free, but that doesn't mean that Breitling don't make a meal of it.

The older/redundant/useless 121.5MHz types were anonymous.

Why is 121.5 useless or redundant?

[GC8]

Because it hasn't been monitored properly for over five years.

[mph1977]

mrfunex said:

GC8 said:

406MHz registration is free, but that doesn't mean that Breitling don't make a meal of it.

The older/redundant/useless 121.5MHz types were anonymous.

Why is 121.5 useless or redundant?

121.5 is still used for local location , do you mean the old 243MHz which is now not monitored.

[Eleven]

mph1977 said:

it's a 406 / 121.5 EPIRB in a watch , Breitling have nothing to do with you getting rescued

That's reassuring. I can imaging being rescued in a bright yellow Range Rover Sport with wide wheels.

[Mabbs9]

GC8 said:

Because it hasn't been monitored properly for over five years.

Except for almost every commercial aircraft passing by?

[GC8]

How will that help though? Without the satellites theres no reliable way of locating the signal.

[mph1977]

GC8 said:

How will that help though? Without the satellites theres no reliable way of locating the signal.

406 is used by the satellites to provide a general area (if no GPS connected providing an accurate fix)

121.5 is used for local search with directional antennae

[GC8]

I understand that its still used on a lot of commercial planes too, but that's because the operators wont upgrade until theyre forced to.

My point was that the satellites which used to detect the signals, now do not. Passing aircraft possibly hearing a very low wattage electronic warble cant be relied upon and local direction finding isn't really what Im talking about. If you have an older Breitling Emergency with a small 121.5MHz transmitter in it, its pretty much useless now, so don't expect International Rescue to appear hovering overhead...

On a separate note, I believe that the old analogue 5w warblers were only able to be detected over 60% of the planets surface, even before environmental factors came into play, which isn't great.